Category Archives: Conferences

Science + Communication on the Web = An Evolving Discussion

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Last week (Feb 26 – March 1) the 8th Annual ScienceOnline Together Conference took place in North Carolina.  Thanks to the support of TERRA Research Magazine and OSU’s Environmental Health Sciences Center, a watch party was held on the OSU campus allowing for virtual attendance and participation (no need to wait in a TSA screening line!).  The focus of the conference was to explore how the World Wide Web is changing the way science is shared, communicated, and interpreted.  There were an incredible number of sessions of interest to science communicators that use a variety of web formats including outreach, blogging, and social media.  Participants spanned scientists, students, journalists, and educators.  A sampling of the session topics included:  Communicating the Process of Science, Healthy Online Promotion, How Psych Research Can Inform Effective Communication, and The Role of Social Media in Science News Reporting.  Tips, tricks, insights, stories, best practices – all were shared in efforts of helping others build new skills and effectively communicate their research or science program on the web.  As the conference progressed, there was a flurry of activity on Twitter.  I believe at one point the conference was trending as people live-tweeted the sessions with #scio14 or #sciox.  It was hard to keep up with everything coming in on TweetDeck!

My role with the watch party included support during the session on “Social Media as a Scientific Research Tool”.  David Shiffman, graduate student and blogger for Southern Fried Science, led the discussion from Raleigh, and presented ways that social media could be used in research on topics such as disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and public policy.  The discussion evolved into questions about ethics, privacy, and accurate interpretations of qualitative content.  As someone studying social science and qualitative research methods, I appreciated hearing comments about the increased access to social media data (such as status updates or tweets on a particular topic) and presuming “expertise” in human behavior and perceptions based on brief content analysis.  It was suggested that if you are trained in the natural or physical sciences, it is useful to collaborate with a social scientist to reach a more accurate interpretation.

It is great to these conversations are happening and to see a community that is eager to organize and push forward on the evolution of science communication.  Watching these sessions made me reflect on the power of language and the theorists we reference in the Free-Choice Learning Lab.  Frequently we cite the work of psychologist Vygotsky with regards to cognitive development coupled with social interaction and language as a semiotic tool.  If he were alive today, I sure he would be interested in the science of science communication and how we as humans use social engagement and tools like social media as a method of increasing the numbers participating in discussion.

I’m looking forward to seeing how SciOnline Together Conference evolves for the 2015 session in Georgia.

Mining Nuggets of Collaboration

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Shawn and I will be going to the National Association for Interpretation Workshop this week in Reno, Nevada. We will be talking to interpreters about bridging the gaps between Free-Choice Learning research and Interpretive practice, “mining the nuggets” for cross-communication and visibility among professionals in both worlds, discussing potential benefits from interdisciplinary use of concepts, principles and research findings towards the shared goal among both communities of practice.

Museums are informal education settings where Free-Choice Learning (FCL) takes place and where educators and practitioners are also interpreters. FCL in such settings draws from strong learning theories and their contextual application, targeting audiences such as museum educators, evaluation staff, exhibit designers, program developers, volunteer personnel and volunteer managers. These are also the targeted practitioners mediating learning in museums through use of interpretive tools, principles and resources.

Given the complimentary nature of practice in both FCL and Interpretation fields, understanding cross-disciplinary potential and dissemination are ways to create collaborative resources and further the research and understanding of how learning takes place in museums, how the theoretical discourses relate to/build upon interpretive principles and use of interpretive tools. This confluence can have meaningful implications on interpretive program design and implementation in museum settings and others alike, as to promote valuable learning experiences for visitors.

This is what we will be brainstorming at the workshop. So bloggers please respond with any insights you may have on possible collaboration avenues and links you consider important to be made here.

Thanks!

 

When environmental educators get together

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This past week was about sharing, learning and networking.  A few of us in the Free-Choice Learning Program participated in the North American Association for Environmental Education  (NAAEE) Conference in the so-called “Charm City” of Baltimore.  Many presentations, keynote speakers, round-tables, social networking and casual conversations later, I (at least) came back home with refreshed energy and feeling empowered to really do better.

The kick-off keynote speaker was a major realization about the outstanding environmental education (EE) work that really happens out there and how ideas do materialize and are successful in changing lives and reconnecting people to nature.  One of the most engaging and provocative speakers I have ever heard, Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx teacher who received the U.S. EPA award (among many others) for transforming landscapes and mindsets in New York City. His classroom contains an indoor edible wall that feeds students healthy meals and trains the youngest nationally certified workforce in America. His speech was engaging, super electric, and very passionate, as he tells the story of how he moves generations of Bronx students into a better life and academic success while rebuilding the Bronx neighborhood. As he said, “it is easy to raise a healthy kid than to fix a broken man”, we are “AmeriCANs (http://greenbronxmachine.com)

There were many other outstanding speakers I could be talking about as well, including the founder and president of Spitfire Strategies, a public relation firm that works with non-profit organizations to create positive social change. Shawn would love her thought provoking, hilarious and yet very effective presentation on communicating messages. I will leave the details of that for a lab meeting, after all, it was not just about the speakers and sessions, but about self-discovery and fitting my work with the work of others, discovering great programs, realizing some bad ones, learning from lessons learned and critically applying academic knowledge.

When environmental educators get together it is about celebrating the true power of environmental messages. What we do matters and it is indeed transformative. Seeing such wonderful examples of powerful dedicated work towards a more environmentally literate society is energizing and reassuring, so that we don’t catch ourselves looking at the “glass half empty”, but fill that glass with hope and empowerment.

It is not always about numbers!

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The challenges of integrating the natural and social sciences are not news to us. After King, Keohane and Verba’s (KKV’s) book entitled “Designing Social Inquiry”, the field of qualitative methodology has achieved considerable attention and development. Their work generated great discussions about qualitative studies, as well as criticism, and sometimes misguided ideas that qualitative research is benefited by quantitative approaches but not the other way around. Since then, discussions in the literature debate the contrasts between observations of qualitative vs. quantitative studies, regression approaches vs. theoretical work, and the new approaches to mixed-methods design. Nevertheless, there are still many research frontiers for qualitative researchers to cross and significant resistance from existing conservative views of science, which question the validity of qualitative results.

Last week, while participating in the LOICZ symposium (Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I was very encouraged by the apparent move towards an integrated approach between the natural and social sciences. There were many important scientists from all over the world and from many different disciplines discussing the Earth systems and contributing steps towards sustainability of the world’s coastal zone. Many of the students’ presentations, including mine, had some social research component. I had many positive conversations about the Cyberlab work in progress and how it sits at the edge of building capacity for scientists/researchers, educators, exhibit designers, civil society, etc.

However, even in this meeting, over dinner conversation, I stumbled into the conflicting views that are a part of the quantitative vs. qualitative debate — the understanding of scientific process as “only hypothesis driven”, where numbers and numbers alone offer the absolute “truth”. It is still a challenge for me not to become extremely frustrated while having to articulate the importance of social science in this case and swim against a current of uneducated opinions about the nature of what we do and disregard for what it ultimately accomplishes. I think it is more than proven in today’s world that understanding the biogeophysics of the Earth’s systems is essential, but that alone won’t solve the problems underlying the interaction of the natural and social worlds.  We cannot move towards a “sustainable future” without the work of social scientists, and I wish there would be more of a consensus about its place and importance within the natural science community.

So, in the spirit of “hard science”…

If I can’t have a research question, here are the null and alternative hypotheses I can investigate:

H0 “Moving towards a sustainable future is not possible without the integration of natural and social sciences”.

H1  “Moving towards a sustainable future is possible without the integration of natural and social science”

Although, empirical research can NEVER prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that a comparison is true (95 and 99% probability only), I think you would agree that, if these hypotheses could be tested, we would fail to reject the null.

With all that being said, I emphasize here today the work Cyberlab is doing and what it will accomplish in the future, sitting at the frontiers of marine science and science education. Exhibits such as the wave laboratory, the climate change exhibit on the works, the research already completed in the lab, the many projects and partnerships, etc. , are  prime examples of that. Cyberlab is contributing to a collaborative effort to the understanding and dissemination of marine and coastal issues, and building capacity to create effective steps towards sustainable land-ocean interactions.

I am very happy to be a part of it!

 

Cyberlab goes international again….

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And the Cyberlab is again “going abroad”….Field trip to Brazil anyone?

I will be presenting about my proposed research and the work of cyberlab at a LOICZ (Land-Ocean interaction at the Coastal Zone) Symposium in Rio next week. LOICZ is a core project of the international Biosphere-Geosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The goal of LOICZ is to contribute to science development towards understanding the earth’s systems in order to inform and contribute to sustainable practices and educate the public about the world’s coastal zones.

As one of 8 young Brazilian social and natural scientists funded to participate, I will have the great opportunity to share my research project and the work of cyberlab,  to gain insights onto their global research program as it relates to the themes of the “Future Earth” Programme and contribute to discussions with the LOICZ Steering Committee. The Future Earth themes are:

1.Dynamic Planet: Observing, explaining, understanding, and projecting earth, environmental, and societal system trends, drivers and processes and their interactions as well as anticipating global thresholds and risks.

2.Global development: Knowledge for the pressing needs of humanity for sustainable, secure and fair stewardship of food, water, biodiversity, energy, materials and other ecosystem functions and services.

3.Transformation towards Sustainability: Understanding transformation processes and options, assessing how these relate to human values and behaviour, emerging technologies and social and economic development pathways, and evaluating strategies for governing and managing the global environment across sectors and scales.

Can you think of links/ associations between their themes and the various research works taking place within the lab?  The event funders agreed the work we do fits right within their mission and they are very excited to learn more about the potential for an interdisciplinary  research platform that the cyberlab represents. I have to say,  I was happy to see they are not only valuing the inputs of students/young scientists within their large discussions and initiatives for the Future Earth Programme, but also the inputs of social scientists and learning researchers as ourselves. I am very happy to be a part of this.

If you want to learn more about LOICZ visit   http://www.loicz.org/about_us/index.html.en  

Stay tuned for twitter posts from Brazil!

Susan

What’s the Bleeding Edge for Museums?

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Last week, I talked about our eye-tracking in the science center at the Museums and the Web 2013 conference, as part of a track on Evaluating the Museum. This was the first time I’d attended this conference, and it turned out to be very different from others I’d attended. This, I think, meant that eye-tracking was a little ahead of where the audience of the conference was in some ways and behind in others!

Many of the attendees seemed to be from the art museum world, which has some different and some similar issues to those of science centers – we each have our generally separate professional organizations (American Association of Museums) and (Association of Science and Technology Centers). In fact, the opening plenary speaker, Larry Fitzgerald, made the point that museums should be thinking of ways that they can distinguish themselves from formal schools. He suggested that a lot of the ways museums are currently trying to get visitors to “think” look very much like they ways people think in schools, rather than the ways people think “all the time.” He mentioned “discovery centers” (which I took to mean interactive science centers), as places that are already trying to leverage the ways people naturally think (hmm, free-choice learning much?).

The twitter reaction and tone of other presentations made me think that this was actually a relatively revolutionary idea for a lot of folks there. My sense is that probably that stems from a different institutional culture that prevents much of that, except for places like Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, where Nina Simon is re-vamping the place around participation of community members.

So, overall, eye-tracking and studying what our visitors do was also a fairly foreign concept; one tweet wondered whether a museum’s mission needed to be visitor-centric. Maybe museums that don’t have to rely on ticket sales can rest on that, but the conference was trying to push a bit that museums are changing, away from places where people come to find the answer, or the truth and instead to be places of participation. That means some museums may also be generally lagging the idea of getting funding to study visitors at all, let alone spending large amounts on “capital” equipment, and since eye-trackers are expensive technologies designed basically only for that purpose, it seemed just a little ahead of where some of the conference participants were. I’ll have to check back in a few years and see h0w things are changing. As we talked about in our lab meeting this morning, a lot of diversity work in STEM free-choice learning is happening not in academia, but in (science) museums. Maybe that will change in a few years, as well, as OSU continues to shape its Science and Mathematics Education faculty and graduate programs.