Science outreach, also called
Education and Public Outreach (EPO or E/PO) or simply
Public outreach, is an umbrella term for a variety of activities by research institutes, universities, but also institutions such as
science museumA science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...
s, aimed at promoting
public awareness (and understanding) of sciencePublic Awareness of Science , also public understanding of science is a term relating to the attitudes, behaviors, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to scientific knowledge and organization.It is a comparatively new approach to...
and making informal contributions to
science educationScience education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
.
While there have always been individual scientists interested in communicating their ideas to the public, science outreach has become more organized over the past years.
For example, the US space agency
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
now requires all of its projects to organize suitable outreach activities; there are now conferences on the subject, such as
Communicating Astronomy to the Public , and there are organized efforts to put outreach on a more general institutional footing such as the
Washington Declaration on Communicating Astronomy to the Public.
An increasing number of projects has one or more dedicated outreach scientists (part-time or full-time), and there are specialized outreach providers such as the
Education branch of the
Space Science InstituteThe Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation formed in 1992. Its purpose is to create and maintain an environment where scientific research and education programs can flourish in an integrated fashion....
in Boulder, Colorado and the education and public outreach group at
Sonoma State UniversitySonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and forty five minutes north of San Francisco...
which offer to organize a project's outreach activities on a contractual basis.
In addition to outreach by research institutions, an important part of informal science education are outreach programs by institutions such as
science museumA science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...
s or in the context of
science festivalA science festival is a public event featuring a variety of science- and technology-related activities—from lectures, exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours and panel discussions to cultural events such as theater plays, readings and musical productions, all with...
s.
Probably the oldest form of science outreach, dating back at least as far as 1820s, when
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
organized the first of the
Royal InstitutionThe Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London...
's
Christmas LecturesThe Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been held in London since 1825. Each year, the Royal Institution presents a series of lectures on a single topic. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner...
.
Public talks can be part of an institution's lecture series, given in the context of a
science festivalA science festival is a public event featuring a variety of science- and technology-related activities—from lectures, exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours and panel discussions to cultural events such as theater plays, readings and musical productions, all with...
, or in cooperation with a special interest group such as a local astronomy club.
Public presentations can have a variety of formats - from a straightforward lecture with or without
experimental demonstrationsA scientific demonstration is a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering ....
to a guided format in the form of a live
interviewAn interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Employment-related :* Job interview* Case interview...
or a discussion with several participants and a moderator.
Less formal are initiatives such as
Café ScientifiqueCafé Scientifique is a grassroots public science initiative currently running in 42 cities across the United Kingdom and cities in other countries. At least twelve cafés outside the UK are organised by the British Council alone. Similar but independent events have also sprung up in many cities...
, in which a café or bar is the venue for regular meetings involving guest scientists talk about their work or take part in discussions with members of the public.
K-12 students and teachers are an important target group for science outreach.
Science outreach, also called
Education and Public Outreach (EPO or E/PO) or simply
Public outreach, is an umbrella term for a variety of activities by research institutes, universities, but also institutions such as
science museumA science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...
s, aimed at promoting
public awareness (and understanding) of sciencePublic Awareness of Science , also public understanding of science is a term relating to the attitudes, behaviors, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to scientific knowledge and organization.It is a comparatively new approach to...
and making informal contributions to
science educationScience education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
.
Scope and history
While there have always been individual scientists interested in communicating their ideas to the public, science outreach has become more organized over the past years.
For example, the US space agency
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
now requires all of its projects to organize suitable outreach activities; there are now conferences on the subject, such as
Communicating Astronomy to the Public , and there are organized efforts to put outreach on a more general institutional footing such as the
Washington Declaration on Communicating Astronomy to the Public.
An increasing number of projects has one or more dedicated outreach scientists (part-time or full-time), and there are specialized outreach providers such as the
Education branch of the
Space Science InstituteThe Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation formed in 1992. Its purpose is to create and maintain an environment where scientific research and education programs can flourish in an integrated fashion....
in Boulder, Colorado and the education and public outreach group at
Sonoma State UniversitySonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and forty five minutes north of San Francisco...
which offer to organize a project's outreach activities on a contractual basis.
In addition to outreach by research institutions, an important part of informal science education are outreach programs by institutions such as
science museumA science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...
s or in the context of
science festivalA science festival is a public event featuring a variety of science- and technology-related activities—from lectures, exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours and panel discussions to cultural events such as theater plays, readings and musical productions, all with...
s.
Public talks/lectures/discussions
Probably the oldest form of science outreach, dating back at least as far as 1820s, when
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
organized the first of the
Royal InstitutionThe Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London...
's
Christmas LecturesThe Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been held in London since 1825. Each year, the Royal Institution presents a series of lectures on a single topic. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner...
.
Public talks can be part of an institution's lecture series, given in the context of a
science festivalA science festival is a public event featuring a variety of science- and technology-related activities—from lectures, exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours and panel discussions to cultural events such as theater plays, readings and musical productions, all with...
, or in cooperation with a special interest group such as a local astronomy club.
Public presentations can have a variety of formats - from a straightforward lecture with or without
experimental demonstrationsA scientific demonstration is a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering ....
to a guided format in the form of a live
interviewAn interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Employment-related :* Job interview* Case interview...
or a discussion with several participants and a moderator.
Less formal are initiatives such as
Café ScientifiqueCafé Scientifique is a grassroots public science initiative currently running in 42 cities across the United Kingdom and cities in other countries. At least twelve cafés outside the UK are organised by the British Council alone. Similar but independent events have also sprung up in many cities...
, in which a café or bar is the venue for regular meetings involving guest scientists talk about their work or take part in discussions with members of the public.
Visiting K-12 institutions
K-12 students and teachers are an important target group for science outreach. Activities include scientists visiting K-12 institutions giving talks for a larger or more restricted audience, discussions with students, or participations in events such as a school's career fair.
Workshops/schools for teachers and/or students
Inviting groups of selected K-12 students to a research institution for a workshop is another popular form of outreach event. Formats range from a one-day visit to more involved week-long events such as Perimeter Institute's
International Summer School for Young Physicists (two-week-long programs for a total of a hundred Canadian and international students from grade 11).
Another effective way of outreach are workshops aimed at teachers - presenting results of modern science, as well as suitable ways for integrating them into existing curricula.
Supporting science fairs and similar events
Apart from organizing independent events, there is always the possibility to participate in existing projects that are aimed at promoting awareness of science. A notable examples are
science fairA science fair is generally a competition where contestants present their science project results in the form of a report, display board, and models that they have created...
s, in which working scientists can participate both as judges and as sponsors of particular projects
Astronomy outreach
Public communication of astronomy provides an important link between the scientific astronomical community and society, giving visibility to scientific success stories and supporting both formal and informal science education. While the principal task of an astronomer is to further our knowledge of the Universe, disseminating this new information to a wider audience than the scientific community is becoming increasingly important. This is the main task of public astronomy communication — to bring astronomy to society.
The next few years will be extremely important for astronomy communication and education. The
International Year of AstronomyThe International Year of Astronomy is a year-long celebration of astronomy, taking place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the publication of Johannes Kepler's Astronomia nova in the 17th century...
2009 will serve as a unique platform to inform the public about the latest discoveries in astronomy as well as to emphasize the essential role of astronomy in science education. However, as the astronomy outreach community expands globally, it becomes increasingly important to establish a community of science communication experts.
Online outreach
The
World Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view Web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them using hyperlinks...
is one of the most powerful science outreach instruments, and many institutes have developed web-based outreach projects, providing general information about the science involved, interactive features such as online games, and teacher's kits to facilitate integration of science content into the classroom.
Examples for outreach sites:
While most outreach websites are tied to specific institutions, there are also cooperative websites with contributions by scientists from a variety of institutes. An example is
Einstein Online, a cooperative
relativityThe theory of relativity, or simply relativity, generally refers specifically to two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity...
outreach site. Another possibility for online outreach with even wider reach is participation in larger projects that make science information available to the general public, such as
WikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki and encyclopedia...
,
CitizendiumCitizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project led by Larry Sanger, who co-founded the encyclopedia Wikipedia in 2001....
, and iTunes U the free educational portion of
iTunesiTunes is a proprietary digital media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone...
.
Awards
There are a number of awards honoring commitment to science outreach. Prominent examples are
- Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology (AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation between scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for...
)
- Descartes Prize for Excellence in Science Communication (European Commission
The European Commission acts as an executive of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.The Commission operates in the method of cabinet government, with 27...
)
- Michael Faraday Prize
The Michael Faraday Prize is awarded by the Royal Society of London for "excellence in communicating science to UK audiences". Named after Michael Faraday, the medal itself is made of silver gilt, and is accompanied by a purse of £2500...
for communicating science to a UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
audience (Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
)
- Communicator award (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is an important German research funding organization and the largest in Europe. The DFG supports research in science and the humanities through a large variety of grant programmes, prizes and by funding infrastructure...
)
There are also a number of prizes for outreach work concerning specific subjects, such as
External links