This fact sheet summarizes findings and recommendations from the Engaging Latino Audiences in Informal Science Education (Connecting Cultures) project. From 2009 through 2013, Environment for the Americas, National Park Service, and a suite of partners across the United States studied the barriers to Latino participation in informal science education (ISE) programs at natural areas.
"Genetically Modified Organisms" are not a consistent category: it is impossible to discuss such a miscellaneous bunch of products, deriving from various biotech methods, as if they had a common denominator. Critics are too often pre-emptively suspicious of peculiar risks for health or the environment linked to this ill-assorted ensemble of microorganisms, plants or animals: yet, even before being unscientific, the expression "GMO(s)" has very poor semantic value. Similarly, claims that recombinant DNA technology is always safe are a misjudgement: many unsatisfactory "GMOs" have been discarded
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) is dedicated to highly rigorous, standardized and effort-controlled data collected at a time and space scale useful in science and resource management. COASST is creating and implementing a new marine debris module, as part of a larger study of the factors affecting recruitment and retention of participants.
This essay reflects on three figures that can be used to make sense of the changing nature of public participation in the life sciences today: outlaws, hackers and Victorian gentlemen. Occasioned by a symposium held at UCLA (Outlaw Biology: Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio), the essay introduces several different modes of participation (DIY Bio, Bio Art, At home clinical genetics, patient advocacy and others) and makes three points: 1) that public participation is first a problem of legitimacy, not legality or safety; 2) that public participation is itself enabled by and thrives on
The Natural History Museum’s contemporary arts programme is described and discussed, in particular the developments since 2006. The various models of engaging with artists and the rationale behind the resulting exhibitions and displays are explained in more detail. Artists who have created new works enabled through the programme include Mark Dion, choreographer Siobhan Davies, Tania Kovats, Tessa Farmer, Dan Harvey and Heather Ackroyd.
Learning to See, Seeing to Learn: A Sociotechnical System Supporting Taxonomic Identification Activities in Volunteer-Based Water Quality Biomonitoring is an Innovations in Development proposal to further develop and study a cyber-enhanced informal learning environment to support observational practices and classification skills in a citizen science context. In particular, we focus on the taxonomic ID bottleneck that hampers the acquisition of high-caliber biotic data needed for volunteer-based water quality monitoring efforts.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The project developed FieldScope, a GIS-based platform that enables organizations to engage students and members of the public in educational citizen science projects.
To address the lack of diversity that exists within the fields of wildlife and conservation science, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) developed "Bridging the Gap," a three-year youth development initiative for New York City high school students. Over the course of three cohorts, "Bridging the Gap" served 150 students from communities underrepresented in the sciences. The project aimed to help participants see the relevance of science study to their own lives and support them in pursuing a career in wildlife conservation or another science. Participants engaged in activities including
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen TingleyBrian JohnsonEmily StoethCourtney Wiggins
Organized creationism is not widespread in Italy. It is a rather limited resource politicians and columnists draw upon when wishing to stir up a “debate”. Judging by its results, Italian creationism is old-fashioned, still comparing Darwin’s theories with the Bible, hoping to find the wreckage of Noah’s Ark, holding conferences on the origin of apes, questioning fossil dating and distorting science debates with out-of-context quotations from disparate sources. It is not a lobby that could obtain considerable electoral support, win favour or drag scientists to court.
In addition to their intrusive presence in American schools, creationists - or more modern epigones thereof, known as “intelligent designers” - are also and unexpectedly to be found in other countries. Take the United Kingdom as an example. Over the past few years, Darwin’s homeland has actually been witnessing attempts to introduce literal faith in the Bible into school programmes in a way which does not significantly differ from the one adopted in the United States. It is multi-billionaire Howard H. Ahmanson who generously finances the Discovery Institute across the Atlantic, one of the
I would like to celebrate not one, but two major news stories about evolution that help further cast the forces of intellectual darkness — meaning creationism and intelligent design — back into the shadows where they belong.
The debate on Darwin’s theory of evolution is a unique case for observing some particular ways in which science is perceived and experienced in society. It is a dispute which is really not very scientific at all, since it ultimately derives from the attempt to discredit a corroborated scientific explanation (and to limit its teaching) by fundamentalist fringe groups of religious and political movements of various extraction. However, it is undeniable that the clash between creationists and evolutionists must also involve, in a critical and self-reflective way, the communicative weaknesses of