The San Diego Natural History Museum (theNAT) contracted RK&A to conduct a summative evaluation of the exhibition Extraordinary Ideas from Ordinary People: A History of Citizen Science and to explore how well the exhibition communicates an inclusive view of science. The goals for the evaluation were to explore visitors’ behaviors in the exhibition as well as understand what meanings visitors made from the exhibition, particularly with regard to how the exhibition’s messages about citizen science are resonating in the context of visitors’ science identity.
RK&A conducted timing and tracking
In an information free-for-all why should scientists bother to add their voice? In this commentary piece I argue there is an increasingly important role for scientists amongst the growing ranks of public intellectuals and the many who style themselves as such. First, we must become the sifters and sorters. We need to be willing to use our research and analytical skills to identify what is valuable amongst all the noise, and, if necessary, to volubly reject what is not. And, second, we need to create and defend the space everyone needs for deep thought and consideration. We need to influence
This paper provides an analysis of the implementation and the outcomes of Scienza Attiva, an Italian national project for secondary school students, that makes use of deliberative democracy tools to address socio-scientific issues of great impact. The analysis has required a mixed method including surveys of students' pre- and post-project opinions, focus groups and interviews with students and teachers. The results from this evaluation study provide evidence that the project improves students' understanding of socio-scientific issues, strengthens their awareness of the importance of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Federica CornaliGianfranco PomattoSelena Agnella
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
How should we convey science—both its findings and its value to society—to the many members of the public who lack either scientific training or intense interest in scientific progress? In October 2016 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to explore ways of better presenting science—both specific findings and the processes of discovering and confirming—to the public. Participants discussed ways to develop data-enriched narratives that communicate to the public and policy makers in an engaging and rigorous way the work of basic research. They also
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Stephanie Spiris is a 12-year veteran teacher at George Washington High School in Denver, teaching courses in biomedical science (Figure 1). Last year, Spiris spent four weeks in a summer internship at Terumo BCT, a medical device company that focuses on blood processing for medical treatment and care. Decked in full lab gear and ready to learn, Spiris worked in a sterile lab, conducting projects that allowed her firsthand experience with tasks such as separating t-cells from blood and freeze-drying plasma.
In this article, we present three challenges to the emerging Open Science (OS) movement: the challenge of communication, collaboration and cultivation of scientific research. We argue that to address these challenges OS needs to include other forms of data than what can be captured in a text and extend into a fully-fledged Open Media movement engaging with new media and non-traditional formats of science communication. We discuss two cases where experiments with open media have driven new collaborations between scientists and documentarists. We use the cases to illustrate different advantages
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristian Moltke MartinyDavid Budtz PedersenAlfred Birkegaard
Sustainability science, as described by the PNAS website, is “…an emerging field of research dealing with the interactions between natural and social systems, and with how those interactions affect the challenge of sustainability: meeting the needs of present and future generations while substantially reducing poverty and conserving the planet's life support systems.” Over the past 7 y, PNAS has published over 300 papers in its unique section on sustainability science and has received and reviewed submissions for many hundreds more. What kind of a science is sustainability science?
Peter Weingart and Lars Guenther suggest that the public's trust in science has become endangered due to a new ecology of science communication. An implicit theoretical base of their argument is that the integrity of science as an institution depends on the integrity of science as a profession. My comment aims to reconstruct and question this specific institutional understanding of science. I argue that rust in technologies of knowledge production might be a potential equivalent to trust in professions.
In considering the ethos of science, Robert Merton [1973] posited that openness and secrecy reflect opposing values in the accomplishment of science. According to Merton, scientific inquiry required that all interested parties have access to and freely share scientific information. In our current epoch, this importance of openness in science seems even more widely accepted. It is a given nowadays that scientists are expected to work as part of a team, not only within their own department, but also with other departments different disciplines. To work interdisciplinary scientists must become
The mixed methods randomized experimental study assessed a model of engagement and education that examined the contribution of SciGirls multimedia to fifth grade girls’ experience of citizen science. The treatment group (n = 49) experienced 2 hours of SciGirls videos and games at home followed by a 2.5 hour FrogWatch USA citizen science session. The control group (n = 49) experienced the citizen science session without prior exposure to SciGirls. Data from post surveys and interviews revealed that treatment girls, compared to control girls, demonstrated significantly greater interest in their
This summative evaluation report details the Broad Implementation of the Living Laboratory model--an initiative to promote partnership between museums and cognitive science researchers in order to promote professional learning and involve the public in scientific research. The evaluation investigated the extent of the dissemination effort’s depth, spread, sustainability, and shift in ownership, based on Coburn’s criteria for scale-up (2003). Evaluators collected data from surveys, interviews, focus groups, document review, and observations. Findings about depth suggest that adopters fully
Frontier Scientists is comprised of a website and portfolio of videos created for distribution web-wide and through television broadcast. The goal of this program is to excite the general public about ongoing science in Alaska and the Arctic. This is the summary evaluation of a three-year National Science Foundation grant received by Frontier Scientists. Frontier Scientists contracted PEER Associates to conduct the evaluation. Over the course of the three years, the evaluation was focused on both formative (intended to inform and improve programming) and summative (what has the program