Science communication processes are complex and uncertain. Designing and managing these processes using a step-by-step approach, allows those with science communication responsibility to manoeuvre between moral or normative issues, practical experiences, empirical data and theoretical foundations. The tool described in this study is an evidence-based questionnaire, tested in practice for feasibility. The key element of this decision aid is a challenge to the science communication practitioners to reflect on their attitudes, knowledge, reasoning and decision-making in a step-by-step manner to
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maarten C.A. van der SandenFrans J. Meijman
Schools throughout America put an emphasis on instruction in mathematics. Students who are visually impaired should not be left out of this national effort (Kapperman & Sticken, 2003). It has been established that children who are visually impaired should learn mathematical skills at the same level as their sighted peers (Tindell, 2006). However, the acquisition of mathematical skills can be more difficult for students with visual impairments due to the abstract nature of many essential concepts and the highly visual presentation of the subject (Kapperman, Heinze, & Sticken, 2000). This
What can a visually impaired student achieve in art education? Can visually impaired students teach sighted students about elements of perception that sighted students would not normally consider? Are the legal moves towards rights to equal access for visually impaired people useful in asserting that visually impaired students can gain as much from gallery exhibits as sighted students can? In this article, these questions are studied in a practice report of a course involving visually impaired and sighted students working in groups, studying in a museum and creating art work at schools for the
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Simon James Hayhoe
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Innovation processes are rarely smooth and disruptions often occur at transition points were one knowledge domain passes the technology on to another domain. At these transition points communication is a key component in assisting the smooth hand over of technologies. However for smooth transitions to occur we argue that appropriate structures have to be in place and boundary spanning activities need to be facilitated. This paper presents three case studies of innovation processes and the findings support the view that structures and boundary spanning are essential for smooth transitions. We
Comprehension of the nature and practice of science and its social context are important aspects of communicating and learning science. However there is still very little understanding among the non-scientific community of the need for debate in driving scientific knowledge forward and the role of critical scrutiny in quality control. Peer review is an essential part of this process. We initiated and developed a pilot project to provide an opportunity for students to explore the idea that science is a dynamic process rather than a static body of facts. Students from two different schools
The interview concerns the role of scientific books in the Italian society from the 19th century until today. Having played an important role in the formation of a national scientific community, science popularization has offered a ceaseless high-quality production during the past two centuries. On the other hand, even today scientific publications do reach only a narrow élite. In the author’s opinion, only the school system has the power to widen the public for science in Italy.
A survey we carried out in upper secondary schools showed that the majority of the students consider physics as an important resource, yet as essentially connected to technology in strict terms, and not contributing “culture”, being too difficult a subject. Its appreciation tends to fade as their education progresses through the grades. The search for physics communication methods to increase interest and motivation among students prompted the Department of Physics at the University of Milan to establish the Laboratory of ScienzATeatro (SAT) in 2004. Up to May 2010, SAT staged three shows and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marina CarpinetiMichela CavinatoMarco GilibertiNicola LudwigLaura Perini
Several publications have sought to define the field of science communication and review current issues and recent research. But the status of science communication is uncertain in disciplinary terms. This commentary considers two dimensions of the status of discipline as they apply to science communication – the clarity with which the field is defined and the level of development of theories to guide formal studies. It argues that further theoretical development is needed to support science communication’s full emergence as a discipline.
Science communication is less a community of researchers, but more a space where communities of research coexist to study and deal with communities of researchers. It is, as a field, a consequence of the spaces left between areas of expertise in (late) modern society. It exists to deal with the fragmentations of expertise in today’s society. In between those fragments is where it lives. It’s not an easy position, but an awareness of this unease is part of how science communication scholars can be most effective; as we examine, reflect, debate and help others manage the inescapable cultural
This is an introduction to the essays from the Jcom commentary devoted to the statute and the future of research in science communication. The authors have a long experience in international research in this domain. In the past few years, they have all been committed to the production of collective works which are now the most important references for science communication research programmes in the next few years. What topics should science communication research focus on and why? What is its general purpose? What is its real degree of autonomy from other similar fields of study? In other
Public images of scientific researchers –as reflected in the popular visual culture as well as in the conceptions of the public- combine traditional stereotypic characteristics and ambivalent attitudes towards science and its people. This paper explores central aspects of the public image of the researcher in Greek students’ drawings. The students participated in a drawing competition held in the context of the ‘Researcher’s Night 2007’ realized by three research institutions at different regions of Greece. The students’ drawings reveal that young people hold stereotypic and fairly traditional
Barbara Streicher is the executive manager of the Austrian Science Center Netzwerk, a network grouping over ninety Austrian institutions committed to science communication activities. Barbara used discussion games on many different occasions, all of which were outside a museum, and took place in places such as cafés, libraries, schools, but also shelters for homeless people and prisons. The communication exchange among participants always proved to be very open and respectful at the same time, even when the topics dealt with were especially sensitive and in social distress conditions. The game