Science fairs offer potential opportunities for students to learn first-hand about the practices of science. Over the past six years we have been carrying out voluntary and anonymous surveys with regional and national groups of high school and post high school students to learn about their high school science fair experiences regarding help received, obstacles encountered, and opinions about the value and impact of science fair. Understanding what students think about science fairs will help educators make science fairs more effective learning opportunities. In this paper, we focus on the
The National Center for Science Education’s Science Booster Club Program piloted a no-conflict approach to free, informal science activities focused on climate change or evolution, holding 64 community events at two sites over the course of 15 months, engaging with more than 70,000 participants. In the participating communities science literacy increased over time as did community engagement as measured by local financial support, requests for programming, and event attendance.
European Researchers’ Night is an annual pan-European initiative of the European Commission held on the last Friday in September. In 2015, 1.1 million European citizens and 18,000 researchers took part in events organised in more than 300 cities within Europe and neighbouring countries. The objective of European Researchers’ Night is to encourage the wider public to visit research institutes, engage with researchers, and learn more about European research and potential career opportunities. In this paper, European Researchers’ Night in Ireland is considered through the lens of informal
Increased integration and synergy between formal and informal learning environments is proposed to provide multiple benefits to science learners. In an effort to better bridge these two learning contexts, we developed an educational model that employs the charismatic nature of arachnids to engage the public of all ages in science learning; learning that aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas associated with Biodiversity and Evolution). We created, implemented, and evaluated a family-focused, interactive science event—Eight-Legged Encounters (ELE)—which
There is growing recognition that effective science communication should not merely focus on addressing scientific literacy but must also open dialogue between scientists and the public, build trust, and increase public interest in environmental research. Citizen science BioBlitzes offer a useful approach for science communicators to address many of these key aims. We explore the BioBlitz concept, learnings and outcomes based on a case study of a BioBlitz held in Sydney, Australia. We found that participants valued learning about biodiversity on the day and importantly, all participants