Portal to the Public: Face-to-Face With Scientists

The First Synthesis Meeting was held in January 2008, at the front end of the Portal to the Public grant period. For this meeting, forty-three experts, stakeholders and members of the project team came together at Pacific Science Center for two days of dialog and reflection. Participants brought diverse knowledge and experience, and represented public, research scientist and informal science education perspectives. The First Synthesis Meeting's goal was to facilitate in-depth conversation to identify current initiatives, best practices, and future directions regarding activities in the field that support partnership and collaboration between research organizations and informal science education institutions, involve face-to-face interactions between scientists and public audiences, and involve professional development that prepares scientists to work effectively when face-to-face with public audiences.