The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will continue its collaboration in providing to early- and mid-career scientists and engineers experiential professional development and public service fellowships via the AAAS Science and Technology Fellowship Program. Consistent with the immersion model adopted by AAAS, Fellows at NSF will be selected annually through a competitive process and placed in organizations throughout the Foundation. Fellows will work with NSF staff on a broad range of activities in order to gain insight into how national science and technology policy goals are translated into and reflected by NSF's mission and strategic goals and how and by whom national science and technology policy is driven, shaped and prioritized. NSF fellowship assignments are designed to: educate and expose Fellows to NSF programmatic planning, development and oversight activities in all fields of fundamental research via hands-on engagement; utilize the Fellows' expertise on projects that apprise NSF officials in areas of mutual interest to the Fellow and the host organization; and provide developmental opportunities to inform future career decisions. The program includes an orientation on executive branch and congressional operations, as well as a year-long suite of knowledge- and skill-building seminars involving science, technology and public policy within the federal as well as NSF contexts.
In the long-term, the AAAS Fellowship program seeks to build leadership capacity for a strong national science and engineering enterprise. Upon completion of the Fellowship, Fellows will have gained: a broader understanding and increased insights about the development and execution of federal-level science, technology, engineering and mathematics policies and initiatives as well as how policy and science intersect; enhanced skills in communicating science to support policy development; and a greater capacity to serve more effectively in future leadership roles in diverse environments, including public and policy arenas, academia and the private sector. The ultimate outcome of the Fellowship program experience -- policy savvy science and engineer leaders who understand government and policymaking and are well-trained to develop and execute solutions to address the nation's challenges.
Public understanding of science and civic engagement on science issues that impact contemporary life matter more today than ever. From the Planned Parenthood controversy, to the Flint water crisis and the fluoridation debate, societal polarization about science issues has reached dramatic levels that present significant obstacles to public discussion and problem solving. This is happening, in part, because systems built to support science do not often reward open-minded thinking, inclusive dialogue, and moral responsibility regarding science issues. As a result, public faith in science
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jonathan GarlickP Levine
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The scientific community has been under increasing pressure from policymakers and the public to explain how research contributes to the public good. The community has emphasized two distinct approaches to explaining its operations and value. The first is the use of narratives that can make the work of science more accessible and engaging to nonscientists. The other is the use of new data mining and analysis methods to document quantitatively the complex paths by which research progresses and eventually contributes to a variety of societal goals. While both of these approaches have proved useful, the goal of this workshop is to explore ways that they might be combined into a hybrid approach that will be even more effective.
This workshop will assemble experts in the narrative and data-driven science communication approaches with leading science researchers to discuss how these various perspectives can be merged to define a template for a type of communication that encompasses the appeal of narrative, the rigor of new analytic data, and the understanding of how science works in practice.
Differences in viewpoints between science and society, like in for example the HPV-vaccination debate, should be considered from a socio-technical system perspective, and not solely from a boundary perspective between the lay public, medical doctors and scientists. Recent developments in the HPV-vaccination case show how the debate concerning uncertainty amongst scientists and the lay audience is mostly focussed on the improvement of understanding of lay people about why vaccination is important. This boundary thinking leads to the idea that once the boundary is crossed, the problem is solved
The academic interest in 'science and technology communication' has evolved from different societal domains and fields of application, giving rise to different scholarly traditions. This contribution introduces current issues and agendas in a field that has its origin at the interface of (agricultural) innovation studies, rural development sociology and the communication sciences. The paper starts with a brief sketch of the history of the field. When compared to earlier approaches, current thinking about 'communication, innovation and development' pays greater attention to limitations in the
In response to Weingart and Guenther [2016], this essay explores the issue of trust in science communication by situating it in a wider communications culture and a longer historical period. It argues that the popular scientific culture is a necessary context not only for professional science, but also for the innovation economy. Given that the neutrality of science is a myth, and that science communication is much like any other form of communication, we should not be surprised if, in an innovation economy, science communication has come to resemble public relations, both for science and for
This paper describes evidence suggesting that science curiosity counteracts politically biased information processing. This finding is in tension with two bodies of research. The first casts doubt on the existence of “curiosity” as a measurable disposition. The other suggests that individual differences in cognition related to science comprehension - of which science curiosity, if it exists, would presumably be one - do not mitigate politically biased information processing but instead aggravate it. The paper describes the scale-development strategy employed to overcome the problems associated
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dan KahanAsheley LandrumKatie CarpenterLaura HelftKathleen Hall Jamieson
The Let’s Talk project examined what we know and don’t know about dialogue-based programs in museums. Through research, a symposium and an experimental graduate course, the project created a set of priorities and resources for moving dialogue work forward, developed new relationships across STEM based and cultural based museums and prepared a pool of pre-professionals to enter the field with knowledge of the value and potential of dialogue. The project ends with a call for further articulation and appropriate measurement of the intended and possible impacts and further development of field
Framing ‘science and society’ as a conflict has diverted us from more important problems. Our economic environment urges the commercialisation and social acceptance of new technologies, and science communicators and their publics contribute work to these ends. These activities neglect existing, uncontroversial technologies that, in a collaboration between responsible scientists and their publics, could be deployed to address global problems.
How did industrial museums cross the Atlantic? When the first American museums of science and industry were created in the 1920s, they looked to Europe in order to import what was seen at that time as a burgeoning cultural institution. In this article, I look at this process of appropriation through an analysis of the changing perceptions of European industrial museums as expressed in the reports, surveys and books written by the curators, directors and trustees of the New York Museum of Science and Industry. I will pay particular attention to the 1927 film Museums of the New Age, documenting
Young people learn about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in a variety of ways and from many sources, including school, the media, personal experiences, and friends and family. Yet STEM participation and identification by youth are not equal across social, economic, and cultural communities. This project will study a long-term, out-of-school program for high school-age youth, who are from groups under-represented in STEM academics and careers: girls, youth from low-income households, and youth of color. Located in the urban context of the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) engages youth in applying culturally rich STEM content to work toward social justice and community building. Specifically, this project will examine how the learning practices of the KAYSC model support youth in identifying with, engaging in, and participating in STEM. Through studying the KAYSC's STEM Justice model, which centers youth as learners, teachers, and leaders who address critical community issues through STEM, this project will develop resources that informal science educators in a variety of contexts and programs can use to promote positive social change, equity, inclusion, and applied STEM learning.
The Science Museum of Minnesota will use design-based implementation research to study this model. This research will draw on and further the emerging theoretical framework of science capital. Science capital attempts to capture multiple aspects of science learning and application, including science knowledge, social and cultural resources, and science-related behaviors and practices. Empirically developing the theory of science capital has the potential to build concrete understanding of how to address inequalities in science participation. Four teams will work independently and collaboratively to do so: an adult research team, a high school youth research team, a practitioner team, and a co-design team composed of representatives from the other three teams. Research teams will collect data in the form of observations, semi-structured interviews, practitioner activity reports, artifacts, and the experience sampling method. Initial cycles of design will occur at the Science Museum of Minnesota as researchers and practitioners document, analyze, and iteratively design learning practices within the STEM Justice model. In the second half of the grant, the team will work with an external out-of-school time youth leadership site to implement the redesigned model. Participatory research and design methods involving both youth and adults can advance understanding of what makes out-of-school time STEM learning meaningful, relevant, and successful for marginalized youth and their communities. Grounded in culturally and socially relevant, community-based resources and programming, this project will study how leveraging STEM out-of-school time learning connected to social justice can broaden access to STEM as well as develop workforce, and leadership, and STEM skills by under-represented youth. The project also builds staff capacity for promoting equity and access in informal learning settings.
This project is being funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
Celebrating 15 years of success and growth, the STS Conference Graz on May 9 and 10, 2016, gathered nearly 200 delegates from all over the world who had the opportunity to discuss and share research and experiences on 6 main themes: Policy and Technology; Gender and Queer STS; Mobility, Energy and Sustainability; Responsible Research and Innovation Studies; Nutrition, Health and Biomedicine; and Information and Communication Technologies, Surveillance and Society.