I am guest blogging for the ISTE (International Society for Technology that is happening this weekend and through Tuesday. ISTE is an organization interested in talking about and exploring Make and there are a number of events at the conference on the topic.
Here is a link to my first post:
This past week I had a chance to attend NOAA’s Science on a Sphere workshop in St. Paul, Minnesota. The workshop was held at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) which is located along the shores of the Mississippi River. It was great to see a new science museum and learn about data visualizations presented via 3-D spherical displays. The network of institutions meets annually to discuss use of (now) 100 installations of the sphere around the world and learn from each other. The setup for this display includes up to four projectors placed around a six-foot sphere at 90-degree angles. Images wrap around the sphere based on the alignment of the projectors and represent data on various Earth system processes, such as atmospheric storms, sea surface temperature, seafloor mapping, as well as processes occurring on other planets in the solar system. An app on the iPad helps to “drive” the exhibit, so facilitators can select a playlist of what they want to run on the sphere. I had never seen this display before so it is amazing to see all that has been created for public viewing. There are some videos online of it in action!
The theme of the workshop was “Welcome to the Anthropocene,” or the informal term used to designate the period on our planet where human activity can have a global impact on system functions. Approximately 95 participants were in attendance discussing methods of presenting datasets to different audiences, maximizing use of available content, and showcasing custom content used at their respective sites. NOAA staff also described new features that could be incorporated to the exhibit. The three-day experience was full of working groups, plenary sessions, and inspiring keynote speakers. FCL lab alum Katie Stofer was in attendance and presented some of her research and recommendations on the use of color related to data visualizations on the sphere. Celeste (Science Education PhD student) and I represented the Cyberlab, sharing information about current work in the lab and the potential for Cyber Scholars to collaborate and access the tools we are installing in an effort to study informal science learning. We showed the video produced for Oregon Sea Grant that explained the technology we are using and how that will connect to visitor research. I fielded several questions throughout the rest of the workshop with regards to the projects we are working on. Many participants expressed fascination with the setup and proposed use for research and some of them may pursue the opportunity to be a Cyber Scholar.
In addition to discussions about the sphere, there was a focus on communicating climate change to various audiences and what to keep in mind with regards to cognitive reception and emotion. We discussed the power of cultural models, framing, and connecting with values instead of a “doomsday” message that can so quickly turn people off. One strategy I found interesting was that instead of using the concept promoting individual action, was instead to discuss collective community action starting with people directly connected to you. What can family, friends, and neighbors do to promote change and choices that can have a more measureable impact? There was also the discussion on use of common symbols and metaphors to explain the abstract concepts of climate change. Julie Sweetland of the FrameWorks Institute showed research on use of a metaphor that described climate as a system, similar to the human circulation system. The ocean acted like the heart within the system, pumping or transferring heat around the world. Just like a human cannot live without a healthy heart, the Earth cannot live without a healthy ocean as it has an influence on the rest of the system. Julie showed footage of focus groups that had participants explaining the metaphor to other group members…meaning-making in action!
We did have some time to explore the museum on our own, which I was very excited about. SMM has several incredible exhibits, some permanent, and others that are on display for a limited period of time. The temporary exhibition is Ultimate Dinosaurs, and there were many reconstructions of the beasts on display. There is an interactive Cell Lab, where visitors don lab coats and goggles and can look at their own cheek cells under the microscope and explore the properties of blood. There was also space to tinker with electronics, build and create objects that would fly in a wind tunnel, and a “Collectors’ Corner” where naturalists can earn points to trade for artifacts like agates and small fossils. It seemed as if the museum was always busy with families and school groups. An outdoor exhibit known as the Big Back Yard was a combination of watershed education and a mini-golf putting course. Obstacles included river deltas, mountain ranges, and other natural elements to symbolize the many aspects of the watershed. Signage and information surrounded the holes describing the value of rain gardens and how impervious surfaces affect water runoff. I felt like a kid again as I moved about the museum — it was a lot of fun.
As I was traveling back to Oregon, I reflected on the concepts I keep encountering in the world of informal learning research. So often the topic of communication, cultural tools such as language, interpretation, and meaning-making come up again and again. There are challenges in conveying complex data on a sphere and trying to understand how it might be interpreted by the viewer. What impact does it have on a personal level as well as a social level? So many research questions can extend out of this. As researchers we are also trying to make meaning and interpret the data we collect, then we communicate or share that with others. Ah, the meta level…
In mid-July I will be representing the Cyberlab again at the National Marine Educators annual meeting. Hooray for field trips!
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.
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!
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
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.