International « The Free-Choice Learning Laboratory at HMSC

Welcoming sun, great food, and warm people came to greet us upon our arrival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For me, it is always so good to be home, and this time home at the “wonderful City” to learn about the advancements in science communication taking place in Brazil and Latin America in general. Make no assumptions, this was not a “have fun in the sun” trip, although I would have liked to have spent some time at a tropical beach where swimming is the main activity. Instead, as hard workers and, let’s be honest, good museum nerds, we got to visit Museums and work on strategic evaluation and research planning around some exhibits.

Our first activity involved a whole day visit to the “Museu Ciencia e Vida” (Museum of Science and life) to see and discuss an exhibit called “Forest of Senses”. Luisa Massarani, a former Cyberscholar and Director of Red-Pop UNESCO (Network for the popularization of science and technology in Latin America and the Carebean) is a part of the team in charge of evaluation and research on children’s experience in the exhibit. After a 4 hour meeting, we discussed and finalized the whole research plan and stages of analyses. It felt very rewarding to be recognized as researchers with valuable expertise and to contribute to cutting edge learning research in the Brazilian landscape. Forest of Senses is a great exhibit designed to work as a game activity for younger kids (5-8 years of age) to explore the Brazilian forest habitats and, through using their senses, be provoked and able to explore the ideas around biodiversity, invasive species and wildlife traffic (which is a big problem in Brazil). When we walked through the exhibit to see the initial camera installation and testing through the system package we arranged for them to become a “node” of Cyberlab, it was like reliving the past when Cyberlab started, amidst tons of duck tape and creative solutions for IT problems. As we move forward in this collaboration, it will be interesting to share the process, findings and cultural clashes in the use of cutting edge technology.

To finalize this part I in the summary of our trip, we spent our last 2 days in Rio participating at the RedPop Event organized by Luisa Massarani, with the goal to discuss the science communication scenario in Latin America, where Brazil holds 260 of the total 490 science museums established. It was a great event, I even got to be interviewed by a science journalist for the first time (way to practice my communicating skills). It seems to me Latin America has come long ways not only in the effort of establishing science museums but in the reflection on evaluation and research practices to attend the cultural use of these places. From this event, we came out with fresh ideas on methods for learning research, with many bridges to collaboration in interdisciplinary projects including touch-tank research in Brazilian aquariums, and with a amazing contact list with the names of great science communication researchers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It was also very professionally rewarding to receive recognition for the cutting edge work being developed at Cyberlab and seeing its potential to really materialize and spread. Stay tune for more!

IMG_20140914_130320_257 RedPop2014_3

RedPop2014 RedPop2014_2

The first few pages of Nancy Baron’s book (Escape from Ivory Tower: A Guide to Make Your Science Matter) set the bottom line, the “so what” of why science communication is important and the common cultural clashes tied to the idea of communication, advocacy and policy making. I particularly like her use of the term “agent of change” to assign an important role to scientists who do engage in communicating their science to broader audiences, both as a self- fulfilling role and as a societal role, to give the publics the information they need to make informed decisions or to simply understand the work of science, its true limitations, and also its essentiality.

Do you consider yourself a science communicator? Science educator? Agent of change?

In our group, we have been talking about this needed cultural change in the ways we see and understand learning in various educational landscapes. That to me entails us seeing ourselves as such “agents of change” and committed to become social scientists, who are among the growing body of professionals struggling to become better science communicators. Just as we call for a new cultural of learning, we should also turn attention to the communication processes it entails, in order to contribute to this hybrid space between science discoveries and public perception as a space of accuracy, fruitful dialogue, needed awareness and welcoming changes.

Looking at our growing steps to become important agents in this hybrid space between what we do and what we say, our group will be producing a series of articles in simple but not simplistic language for the International InterpNews magazine starting this fall, tying our various works to the ideal of a change in learning cultures and the role of interpretation in a global education era. It is a commitment to reach a broader audience, to do what we preach and to learn with it. I am proud to be part of this professional community and have valuable opportunities to play the role of an “agent of change”.

“Hands-On Science Museums and Their Visitors” is the topic of a two-day conference coming up September in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Cyberlab will represent Hatfield Science Center/Oregon State University and will join other Science communication professionals from Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom to engage in dialogue about visitor meaning making, basically the kind of conversation we are very enthusiastic about engaging in and promoting, especially in such a multicultural setting.

Luisa Massarani, who was a Cyberscholar this Summer and who is the Director of the RedPop, the Network for Science Communication for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized this event to discuss strategies Museums around the world employ not only to investigate learning but also how a diverse public construct meaning from their visits. Although a bit intimidated I will admit, I am supper excited to participate in this event because it strikes me as a place where paradigmatic shifts in learning research are possible and in fact welcome, as a place where we can make room to discuss strategies to capture and analyze meaning making, to look at visitors from their perspectives, to go beyond the traditional measures of learning outcomes in research, to really give our visitors a voice we can dialogue with in the academic written world.

We talk about this need for a new culture of learning in our Free-Choice Lab meetings, Luisa talked about that in her seminar presentation as a Cyberscholar and the need to understand “provocation” and build provocative exhibits. Shawn and I talked about this in an article just published in the NAI Magazine “Legacy”, which led us to an invitation to expand this thinking through a series of articles for the InterpNews Magazine next year. As these kinds of dialogues spread and increase (as it seems to be happening in my opinion), this discussion becomes highly related to current dialogues on learning research methods and applications in the world of practice. I have been recently involved with the new “Methods” Research Interest Group of NARST (National Association for Research in Science Teaching) and the current development of a broad scope dialogue on learning research that seems to be heading in the direction of valuing these paradigmatic discussions and the need to change.

Even though we are all trying to do this kind of more inclusive, learner-based research in our work, we need to see ourselves as important voices in the larger network of discussions, and commit to speak our mind in fruitful and inclusive ways. Meetings like this really allow us to reflect on how we are trying to do that in the context not just of our own lab and cohort here, but in the larger international context as well. It also gives us a chance to make things real, to move from discussion to actual application invigorated by the good work of others and motivated by our own growth and learning as professionals in the field.

To learn more about RedPop visit the following pages:

http://www.redpop.org/redpopasp/paginas/InfoPrensaDetalle.asp?SitioID=1&InfoPrensaId=90

http://www.redpop.org/redpopasp/paginas/pagina.asp?PaginaID=3

Luisa Massarani is our guest blogger today. She was one of our cyberscholars, visiting Hatfield and Cyberlab from June 29th through July 4th, to learn our tools and resources in order to collaborate with us from the Brazilian Institution she works for, the Museum of Life (Museu da Vida), FIOCRUZ Foundation. Luisa is also the director of RedPOP-Unesco, the Network for Popularizing Science and Technology for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Over the last decade, Brazil has been systematically investing in public engagement in science and technology (S&T), both in pratical activity and in research. As someone who works in the field, I don’t need to be persuaded how much it is important to invest in it. In fact, other countries around the globe have been much more aware of the importance of supporting public engagement in S&T.

However, less effort has been put into understading the meaning different publics make of the public engagement in S&T actitivies – a challenge faced not only in Brazil but also around the globe. In my view, understanding the audiences is, in fact, the main question mark we face in science communication.

This was the main motivation that made our research group at the Museum of Life – a hands on science center in Rio de Janeiro, linked to the research institution Oswaldo Cruz Foundation – focus our attention to audience studies. Latin America has good scientific production in audience studies – mainly in soap operas. Very little, however, has been produced in science communication.

In 2009, we succeed in having a grant for designing a study on audiences and science coverage in TV news as result of a collaboration among 10 countries in “Ibero America” (Latin America plus Portugal and Spain). Since then, we began applying the methodologies we used for that study in the context of a science exhibition. In particular, we were very excited to understand further science exhibitions and 5-8 years old kids – which is a wonderful age for engagement in science due to their natural curiosity about the world around them. Furthermore, there is a substantial gap of literature focusing on this issue.

We feel that further methodologies are necessary for understanding in fact the meaning the kids make of the exhibitions.Thus, since the very begining, the connection with Cyberlab has been very exciting, due to the opportunity for opening new intellectual doors for us. Visiting Cyberlab in person during the week of June 30th was not only very useful and important from the point of view of developing new and more robust methodologies but extremely inspiring for new research and collaboration ideas.

I go back home prepared to start phase 1 of collecting data of the exhibition entitled Forest of Senses, which aims to foster curiosity of kids toward the Brazilian biodiversity. We will implement the methodology we designed together with the Cyberlab team, including installing the equipment that will allow us to transmit to Newport in real time what we will be observing in Brazil. We hope to, very soon, have results to share with all of you!

I had the opportunity to visit a private, Christian K-12 school in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico on the Baja Peninsula where a close friend of mine currently teaches science. As a science educator/biologist, I was really interested in understanding both the school system in this part of Mexico and also the students’ thoughts and experiences regarding conservation and development, as the region is rich in biodiversity and has experienced a great deal of controversy and political tension with regards to whether or not to develop large portions of its pristine coastline.

Beach on the Sea of Cortez in Los Barriles, Baja California Sur.

Upon arriving in Mexico, I learned that the teachers at the school I visited are recruited from both the US and Mexico, and they teach their lessons primarily in English so that the kids can gain English speaking/writing skills. All of the students are Mexican citizens and most have grown up in Baja. The school is private, but is run by a charitable organization and offers many scholarships to students in the area with low socio-economic status. The socio-economic status of the children ranges widely from some kids having parents who work in the high-end resorts or the land bureau offices to those who live in poverty with their families in the desert arroyos (seasonally filled washes or dry desert stream beds). Their teacher told me that she often participates in feeding and clothing her own students. She is a scientist with no previous formal teaching experience, and upon her arrival to the school last year she was given 5-7 full periods of classes per day. Her classes range all the way from elementary to high school and she teaches both science and English. She spoke to me about the difficulties of being a new teacher and having many students not only at different grade levels, but also with a broad range of English speaking abilities. Some kids are close to fluent, while others need students to translate for them during class, which creates some classroom management issues as there are always students talking to one another in side conversations in Spanish. Prior to her coming to the school, none of the kids had science classes, even at the high school level, because of the inability of the school to recruit teachers knowledgeable enough about the content. When she leaves soon to return to the US, there will again be no science classes for any of the 200 students in the school.

While visiting the school, I was able to teach four periods of science classes during which I did a Communicating Ocean Science to Informal Audiences (COSIA) activity with the kids to help teach them that although most of our planet is covered by water, only a small proportion supports a large concentration of life because of nutrient availability in the ocean. The slides were in Spanish, but I conducted the lesson in English, stopping every so often to allow kids to translate for one another and to check for comprehension. This was necessary as neither I nor the teacher were sufficiently fluent in Spanish to be able to help translate ourselves. Some students were more vocal than others which seemed to correlate with their comfort with the English language, but in general they were engaged in the activities and discussions and offered many intelligent suggestions.

I was able to tie the activity we did regarding ocean productivity directly to their home in Baja as the peninsula supports a great amount of biodiversity due to its’ nutrient rich waters, and it still has a lot of pristine coastline despite much development by corporations and large resorts. I incorporated a discussion into the activity by showing a public broadcast video about a failed development plan in Baja that would replace one of the last untouched wetlands in North America with a resort and a golf course. The video also talked about the loss of many potential jobs because of the development failure. I asked the students to reflect on what they had just learned, and we had a class discussion on whether or not Baja’s coastline should be conserved or developed. We also discussed sustainable development and talked a little bit about how development could impact some of Baja’s natural resources and coastal ecosystems and how it could be good in terms of economic growth. The resulting discussion surprised me in that there was an almost unanimous, hands-down response that Baja should be conserved. Their teacher had previously told me that many of them aspire to work at the resorts in the area, so I was somewhat taken aback by their strong anti-development opinions in regards to conserving the natural beauty of their home. One student simply wrote on her paper “Save Baja” and held it up. Another student said that God created the beauty of Baja and that they should protect God’s creatures. Several of the students brought up that there should be a balance between conservation and development that will keep Baja wild, but also bring much needed jobs to the area. In regards to tourism’s effects on the environment many of the students said that “ignorant” Mexican locals hurt the environment with trash and pollution much more than the tourists in the area. They had a strong desire to have clean and beautiful beaches where they could see whales and dolphins, and in our more informal discussions, many of them described spending much of their free time at the beach going to bonfires, surfing, swimming, etc. It occurred to me that their conservationist viewpoints may have stemmed somewhat from their valuing of the pristine coastline where they choose to spend their free time socializing. During my friend’s time at the school she had also brought in local environmentalist guest speakers to talk about sustainability and had taken her class whale watching, which may have also affected on their views towards development. Many of the students had a lot of interest in science and in the politics of their country, although most did not feel empowered to change the governmental actions and policies regarding development and broader issues they did not agree with because of corruption at many levels.

A few of the high school students that participated in the ocean science outreach activity.

Although there are surely challenges unique to this school in Mexico, the school and its’ students were not so different from many schools in the United States. It struck me that this under-funded school with kids from disparate socio-economic classes and wide-ranging English speaking abilities is much like many schools in the US with similar demographics. Teaching students with so many differences in language abilities gave me a new appreciation for our teachers with high numbers of ESL students in their classes, as I felt that repetition was necessary for simple comprehension for some while the constant stopping and repeating was not challenging enough for some of the more fluent students. It was also upsetting to think that some of them might not understand the content simply because of the language barrier and my inability to translate it for them.

The kids at this school were interested in science and how it affected their social and economic well-being, and had clearly benefitted from having a science teacher come to spend a year with them. I am left feeling very thankful for the experience to meet a wonderful group of kids, but also very sad at the idea that starting next week science will not be taught in their school. It is uncertain whether or not they will be able to recruit another science teacher in the future.

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

The Free-Choice Learning Laboratory at HMSC

Informal science education research

Category Archives: International

Cyberlab Adventures in Brazil (Part I)

The science communicator as an “agent of change”

Cyberlab joins Latin America Discussion on Visitor Meaning Making

Being a scholar at Cyberlab: views from a Brazilian (By Luisa Massarani)

Lessons from an Outreach Experience in Baja California, Mexico (By Krissi Hewitt)

Cyberlab goes international again….

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