Informal learning institutions (ILIs) create opportunities to increase public understanding of science and promote increased inclusion of groups underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers but are not equally distributed across the United States. We explore geographic gaps in the ILI landscape and identify three groups of underserved counties based on the interaction between population density and poverty percentage. Among ILIs, National Park Service lands, biological field stations, and marine laboratories occur in areas with the fewest sites for informal
Final External Evaluation Report for Informal STEM Learning at Biological Field Stations, an NSF AISL Exploratory Pathways project, which studied the pedagogical and andragogical characteristics of informal educational outreach activities at field stations. This report summarizes the project team’s major research activities and the contextual factors that supported that work.
Appendix includes interview protocol.
The attached Briefing Booklet was created collaboratively by A2A (Awareness to Action) Planning Workshop facilitators and organizers in advance of the February 2018 convening and was available to participants.
The workshop's primary goal was to establish an operational strategy for knowledge sharing across entities, networks, and associations designed to strengthen communities of practice nationally to better conceive, conduct, and evaluate projects for the public, working at the intersection of science, arts, and sustainability.
The booklet contains an overview of the workshop purpose
There is a vein of democratic idealism in the work of science museums. It is less about political democracy than epistemological democracy. As a one-time museum educator and a researcher who studies science museums, I have always thought of it in terms of an unspoken two-part motto: “see for yourself–know for yourself.” Although this strain of idealism has remained constant throughout the history of science museums, it has been interpreted differently in different eras, responding (in part) to the social upheavals of the day. In the late 1960s, for example, a new generation of self-described
Science learning occurs throughout people's lives, inside and outside of school, in formal, informal, and nonformal settings. While museums have long played a role in science education, learning in this and other informal settings has not been studied nor understood as deeply as in formal settings (i.e., schools and classrooms). This position paper, written by learning researchers in a science museum engaged in equity and access work, notes that while the researchers consider the ethics of their work regularly and deeply, little formal guidance exists for the ethical challenges they routinely
Inclusive science communication (ISC) is a new and broad term that encompasses all efforts to engage specific audiences in conversations or activities about science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) topics, including, but not limited to, public engagement, informal science learning, journalism, and formal science education. Unlike other approaches toward science communication, however, ISC research and practice is grounded in inclusion, equity, and intersectionality, making these concerns central to the goals, design, implementation, evaluation, and refinement of
This study researched whether and how affiliation with the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) led to change in informal science education organizations’ (ISEs) practices. The NISE Net provided an opportunity to look at how participation in a large but loosely-structured network of museums, science centers, educators, and scientists can influence museums to experience organizational change and adopt new practices.
By conducting qualitative case studies of a few selected partners, this research aimed to understand the conditions that facilitate or impede the influence of
Complex political decisions increasingly require scientific knowledge and expertise. But the exchange between actors from the political and the scientific systems is confronted by challenges. Science policy interfaces are needed in order to overcome the barriers to communication. This article analyses and discusses the importance of foundations as science policy interfaces. To this end, we will first present the salient features and functions of foundations as organisations in the framework of theoretical considerations and discuss their fundamental suitability as mediators of scientific
In 2010 both India and Europe launched new strategies focused on innovation, for economic growth and for addressing societal challenges: the Decade of Innovation from the Indian Government and the Innovation Union from the European Union. This piqued our interest in investigating how these two political entities have envisioned the concept of innovation, particularly in studying and comparing how they have focused on people, both as final beneficiaries (and thus principal legitimisers) of policy actions, and as actors themselves in the innovation process. Per contra we found, in institutional
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proceeds on the assumption that scientific consensus is a tool for successful climate communication. While ‘speaking with one voice’ has contributed to the Panel's success in putting climate change on the public and political agenda, the consensus policy is also contested, as our literature analysis (n=106) demonstrates. The arguments identified thereby inform a survey of climate scientists (n=138), who are the ones responsible for realising the policy. The data indicate moderate support for the consensus policy but significantly more in
This paper explores the possible role of Open Science in the knowledge transfer between research and policy, focusing on its potential use by scientific councillors at Estonian ministries. Qualitative interviews with scientific councillors show that they perceive their role as intermediaries between research and policy and focus their work on improving the quality of research commissioned by their ministry. This process, for them, involves using existing academic articles and datasets to which, however, they lack official access. We show that Open Science can contribute to knowledge transfer
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Arko OleskEsta KaalKristel Toom
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Advances in 21st century genetic technologies offer new directions for addressing public health and environmental challenges, yet raise important social and ethical questions. Though the need for inclusive deliberation is widely recognized, institutionalized risk definitions, regulation standards, and imaginations of publics pose obstacles to democratic participation and engagement. This paper traces how the problematic precedents set by the 1975 Asilomar Conference emerge in contemporary discussions on CRISPR, and draws from a recent controversy surrounding field trial releases of genetically