Many professional membership and other national organizations host meetings and conferences, publish magazines or journals, and support online communities that can provide platforms and venues for engagement and dissemination. You can use these opportunities to reach colleagues, professionals in other fields, and diverse practitioners. Browse their websites to see what kinds of opportunities are available.
Botanical gardens, nature centers, and parks
- American Public Gardens Association
- American Horticultural Society and their National Children and Youth Garden Symposium
- National Recreation and Park Association
- Association of Nature Center Administrators
Citizen science
Cyberlearning and gaming community
Evaluation and research
- American Evaluation Association (AEA)
- American Educational Research Association (AERA)
- NARST: A Worldwide Organization for Improving Science Teaching and Learning Through Research
- Visitor Studies Association (VSA)
Events and festivals
- Science Festival Alliance, and their conference, the Science Events Summit
Making and tinkering spaces
Note: There are sizeable gatherings for maker professionals at the ASTC annual conference.
Media
- Allied Media Project
- Alliance for Media Arts & Culture’s Youth Media Initiative
- Global Youth Media Conference
- SMASH (Science Media Awards and Summit in the Hub) and Jackson WILD
Public libraries
- American Library Association (ALA)
- Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL)
- STAR Net (Science-Technology Activities and Resources for Libraries)
- Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of ALA
Science centers and museums
- American Alliance of Museums (AAM)
- Association of Children’s Museums (ACM)
- Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and their many Communities of Practice
- MuseWeb
Science communication, public engagement, and outreach
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), particularly the Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology and the Trellis Communities
- Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS), formerly known as National Alliance of Broader Impacts (NABI)
- Inclusive SciComm Symposium
- Science Talk
- Subject-specific: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB); American Geophysical Union (AGU), especially their Sharing Science initiative; and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB)
Youth and community programs
- Afterschool Alliance
- CSforALL
- Connected Learning Alliance
- Global Family Research Project
- National AfterSchool Association
- National Summer Learning Association
- National Girls Collaborative Project
Note: There are several youth-centered media organizations / conferences in the “media” category above.
Zoos and aquariums
- Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA)
- North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE)
Other STEM education
