This guide offers a comprehensive overview of NISE Network programming, including development by a multi-organization team, implementation by hundreds of partners nationwide, and impact on public audiences. It offers a practical introduction to the approaches, methods, and tools the Network uses to ensure our programs provide effective learning opportunities.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. How can we come to terms with the complex social impact of new cutting-edge fields like synthetic biology, robotics, genetics and
machine learning? In order to manage these transformative changes, people not only need to understand science and technology, but also to actively participate in shaping a world where our ability to control the building blocks of life and cognition is vastly expanded. The Transmedia Museum will use the interactive, engaging nature of
For lay people, mass media are the main source of scientific information; that is why science journalists’ selection and depiction of scientific issues is an important field to study. This paper investigates science journalists’ general issue selection and additionally focuses on science journalists’ depiction of nanoscale science and technology and its related scientific evidence (certainty/uncertainty of research findings). Face-to-face interviews with science journalists (n = 21) from different German media channels were conducted. The results show that the professional role conception
How can technoscientific controversies be interpreted in terms of their public communication? This essay explores the case of nanotechnology to describe how one of the most innovative and cutting-edge technoscientific fields has moved from a grey goo scenario of PCTS that described similarities with biotechnology and GMOs, underlining the risks of potential conflicts between science and society, to the idea of an ‘internal’ controversy, that is a debate mainly present in discussions within professional groups. The conclusions suggest how the study of public communication of technoscientific
New forms of co-working spaces and community labs, such as Hackerspaces and Fablabs, but also open science and citizen science initiatives, by involving new actors often described as makers, tinkerers, and hackers enable innovation and research outside the walls of academia and industry. These alternative and global innovation networks are test beds for studying new forms of public engagement and participation in emergent scientific fields, such as nanotechnology. The article shows how these grassroots and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-With- Others (DIWO) research subcultures connect politics
In the last decade, social studies of nanotechnology have been characterized by a specific focus on the role of communication and cultural representations. Scholars have documented a proliferation of the forms through which this research area has been represented, communicated and debated within different social contexts. This Jcom section concentrates on the proliferation of cultural spaces where nanotechnologies are articulated and shaped in society. The intent is that of showing how these different cultural spaces — with their specific features and implications — raise multiple issues and
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Paolo Magaudda
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Today institutional and project leaders are faced with two critical dilemmas: (1) building the capacity to respond to the increasing evaluation and accountability demands of funders and stakeholders; and (2) managing the complexities of interconnected, multifaceted, ongoing institutional and cross-institutional work. These challenges require leaders to go beyond traditional approaches to professional development and consider the complex ways that systems of professionals communicate, interact, and evolve. This report draws from three years of research as part of the National Science Foundation
The Complex Adaptive Systems as a Model for Network Evaluations (CASNET) study was a four-year research project investigating evaluation capacity building (ECB) within a network using a complexity theory lens. The study used a case study approach to examine and understand evaluation capacity building within the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net). NISE Net is a national community of researchers and informal science educators dedicated to fostering public awareness, engagement, and understanding of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. Instituted in 2005 through NSF funding (DRL-0532536 and 0940143), NISE Net has continuously expanded and is currently comprised of close to 600 science museum and university partners. The intent of the CASNET project was to provide insights on (1) the implications of complexity theory for promoting widespread and systemic use of evaluation within a network, and (2) complex system conditions that foster or impede ECB within a network, i.e., in this case, within the NISE Net.
The knowledge society is a new social species that, despite many uncertainties and some (old and new) ambiguities, is emerging on the horizon of the 21st century. Placed at the convergence of two long-term processes (society of individuals and knowledge society), it is characterised by the social-economic process of knowledge circulation, which can be divided into four fundamental phases (generation, institutionalisation, spreading and socialisation). The current situation also sees the traditional (modern) structure of knowledge being outdated by the convergence of nanotechnologies
Produced by Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul, MN, DragonflyTV (DFTV) is a weekly television series of half-hour live action shows for 8-12 year olds, distributed by PBS Plus. DFTV features real children engaged in real inquiry-based investigations in and around science centers across America. Six 2009 episodes of DFTV focus on the world of nanoscale science and technology. DFTV Nano highlights science centers and university research labs while applying the DFTV “Real Kids … Real Science” model to communicate basic concepts and the scientific process in nanoscience. The themes of the
ECSITE is the European network of science centres and museums (www.ecsite.net). The ECSITE Annual Conference, attended every year by several hundreds of professionals in science museums and science centres (870 at the last edition), and the ECSITE director forum, where full members of the association discuss on focused topics, are excellent observation points. Looking at what goes on in these meetings allows to track what is high on the agenda of the science-centre community, how the focus of interest moves, what are the main concerns of museum professionals.
This article presents some of the challenges faced in developing an interactive exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology in Brazil. Presenting a scientific-technological area which is still in formation and which is little known by the population leads to a (re)consideration of the role of museums and science centers in the conformation and consolidation of scientific practice itself. Museographically, the exhibit deals with the challenge of making matter visible in an expression which is distant from the human perception. Some reflections are presented here on the option of musealization
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Sandra MurrielloDjana ContierMarcelo Knobel