It’s important to communicate the excitement and value of NSF-funded research. This tool (formatted as a Prezi presentation) helps you do that with assistance from NSF public affairs experts, exploring options for communicating your research and broader impacts.
This issue features contributions on the theme of STEM Learning Surrounds Us: Building learning ecosystems that connect STEM education across multiple settings. One contribution features a statewide effort in North Carolina, while two others deal with the challenges of serving rural populations.
Reader response has been positive regarding the publishing of each issue in three parts over three months. This means that manageable amounts of content will be sent to you every month, once the journal starts coming out quarterly in spring 2018.
This is an extended discussion of the question that appeared in the Viewpoints department of the May/June 2016 issue of Dimensions magazine. It discusses whether smartphones benefit or detract from the museum experience from a variety of perspectives from the field.
n July 2016 the much-anticipated new Science and Technology galleries opened at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh. In this latest offering from the Museum, as part of its ongoing masterplan for redevelopment, visitors are treated to three floors of science and technology, in many cases shown through the lens of Scottish contributions to the field. This local focus provides an additional layer of interest and gives the galleries an edge that this collection is uniquely placed to achieve. Located at the opposite side of the Museum to the Natural World galleries, which opened in
Museums are on the up. More than fifty per cent of the UK population now visits one every year; with attendances across many western countries having grown as much as ten per cent in the last decade. During half that period, a variety of funding agencies and individuals have poured no less than five billion dollars into America’s museum infrastructure, with entirely new museums (such as the Eli Broad in LA and Smithsonian’s African American Museum) or hefty extensions of established ones (like that at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) being built as a consequence. While on the other side
Co-led by the University of Washington and Science Gallery Dublin, this project aims to drive and transform the next generation of broadening participation efforts targeting teen-aged youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields. This project investigates how out-of-school time (OST) programs that integrate epistemic practices of the arts, sciences, computer science, and other disciplines, in the context of consequential activities (such as creating radio segments, designing museum exhibitions, or building online games), can more broadly appeal to and engage youth who do not already identify as STEM learners. STEM-related skills and capacities (such as computational thinking, design, data visualizations, and digital storytelling) are key to productive and creative participation in many future civic and workplace activities, and are driving the 30 fastest-growing occupations in the US. But many new jobs will entail a hybrid blend of skills, such as programming and design skills that many students who have disengaged with academic STEM pathways may already have and would be eager to develop further. There is not currently a strong foundation of research-based evidence to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation transdisciplinary programs - in which STEM skills are embedded as tools for meaningful participation - or how such approaches relate to long-term outcomes. Hypothesizing that OST programs which effectively engage youth during their high-leverage teenage years can significantly impact youths' longer-term STEM learning trajectories, this project will involve: 1) Five 3-year studies documenting learning in different technology-rich contexts: Making Afterschool, Media Production, Museum Exhibition Design, Digital Arts Programs, and Pop-Up/Street Science Programs; 2) A 4-year longitudinal study, involving 100 youth from the above programs; 3) The creation of a number of practical measurement tools that can be used to monitor how programs are leveraging the intersections of the arts and sciences to support student engagement and learning; and 4) A Professional Development program conducted at informal science education conferences in the EU and US to engage the informal STEM field with emerging findings. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and learning. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments.
Transdisciplinary, equity-oriented OST programs can provide supportive social contexts in which STEM concepts and practices are taken up as the means for meaningful participation in valued activities, building students' STEM skills in ways that can propel their future academic, career, and lifelong learning choices. This project will build the knowledge base about these emerging 21st century transdisciplinary approaches to broadening participation investigating: 1) The epistemic intersections across a range of disciplines (art, science, computation, design) that operate to broaden appeal and meaningful participation for underrepresented youth; 2) How transdisciplinary activities undertaken in the context of consequential learning (e.g., producing a radio segment, designing an exhibition for the general public) can illuminate the relevance of STEM to young people's lives, concerns, and futures; and 3) How participation in such programs can propel students' longer-term life choices and STEM learning trajectories. The project is a collaboration of the University of Washington, Science Gallery Dublin, Indiana University, Youth Radio in Oakland California, Guerilla Science in New York and London, and the London School of Economics.
Produced by the Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP) Alliance, the "Climate Change Education: Effective Practices for Working with Educators, Scientists, Decision Makers and the Public" guide provides recommendations for effective education and communication practices when working with different types of audiences. While effective education has been traditionally defined as the acquisition of knowledge, Alliance programs maintain a broader definition of “effective” to include the acquisition and use of climate change knowledge to inform decision-making.
The CCEP Alliance is supported
While science communication has become increasingly professionalised, philosophers have been far less active in, and reflective about, how we talk to the public. In thinking about the relationship between the ‘public intellectual’ and science communication, however, philosophy has some important contributions to make, despite the differences of content and disciplinary approach. What, then, can both these professions learn from each other about how to engage with the public - and the risks that this might involve?
This letter reflects on how the role of science in society evolved in 2016. While there were plenty of groundbreaking scientific discoveries, the shifting political landscape cultivated a tempestuous relationship between science and society. We discuss these developments and the potential role of the science communication community in political activism.
From 2013-2016, Pacific Science Center, implemented the Exploring Earth Systems Sciences (EESS) project with the purpose of developing and delivering scripted demonstrations utilizing the Science On a Sphere (SOS) technology in order to promote understanding of and increase interest in Earth systems sciences. Specifically, the grant allowed the Science Interpretation team to research and write 20-minute presentations, targeted towards visitors aged 11 and older, about nine unique topics such as: climate change, weather, seasons, or the Polar Regions. Staff were then provided training in
Many people believe that both public policy and personal action would improve with better access to “reliable knowledge about the natural world” (that thing that we often call science). Many of those people participate in science education and science communication. And yet, both as areas of practice and as objects of academic inquiry, science education and science communication have until recently remained remarkably distinct. Why, and what resources do the articles in this special issue of JRST give us for bringing together both the fields of practice and the fields of inquiry?
The fields of science education and science communication share the overarching goal of helping non-experts and non-members of the professional science community develop knowledge of the content and processes of scientific research. However, the specific audiences, methods, and aims employed in the two fields have evolved quite differently and as a result, the two fields rarely share findings and theory. Despite this lack of crosstalk, one theoretical construct—framing—has shown substantial analytic power for researchers in both fields. Specifically, both fields have productively made use of