March 1st, 2015 - March 1st, 2015 | PROJECT
From intimate science cafes to massive science festivals, the public science events sector encompasses an enormous diversity of activity involving a wide range of practitioners and target audiences. As unique as each instance of an event can be, public science events are all live, in-person programs designed to engage the public with science in a social context. This activity is already taking place on a grand scale in both the US and UK, and initial evaluations of some of these event forms have begun to demonstrate distinct beneficial impacts. Despite some significant leaps forward, there are several issues that this Science Learning+ project seeks to address: (1) insufficient connectivity and communications between many event organizers; (2) little overall tracking of event activity; (3) few comparative evaluations across different event forms; and (4) lack of shared terminology, key facts, and a coherent narrative for the role live events play in the science learning ecosystem. A landscape study, organized into a single document and simple website, is the main deliverable. This will summarize existing activity and findings related to events, and provide an overview of potentially fruitful areas for future investigation.
Project Website(s)
(no project website provided)
Project Products
Science Live: Surveying the landscape of live public science events
Science live — articulating the aims and ethos of science event practitioners in the U.S.A. and U.K.
Team Members
John Durant, Principal Investigator, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBen Wiehe, Co-Principal Investigator, Science Festival Alliance
Bruce Lewenstein, Co-Principal Investigator, Cornell University
Nicola Buckley, Co-Principal Investigator, University of Cambridge
Dane Comerford, Co-Principal Investigator, University of Cambridge
Laura Fogg Rogers, Co-Principal Investigator, University of the West of England, Bristol
Funders
Funding Source: Wellcome Trust
Funding Program: SL+
Funding Amount: 114864
Tags
Audience: Elementary School Children (6-10) | General Public | Middle School Children (11-13) | Museum | ISE Professionals | Youth | Teen (up to 17)
Discipline: Education and learning science | General STEM
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Public Events and Festivals | Public Programs