Creating space in Science Centers for public discussions about the social aspects of science and technology

by Jameson Wetmore & Ira Bennett - Center for Nanotechnology in Society

Arizona State University, USA

There are approximately 300 science centers in the United States. They range from two room centers in tiny towns to enormous museums in Chicago and Boston. They vary widely from place to place, but typically they have three goals: First, they try to relate basic scientific facts so that the lay public can understand them. Second, they seek to inspire young people to consider science and engineering as a career. And third, they attempt to entertain so that families and children will want to return again and again.

Because science and technology play an ever increasingly important role in our daily lives, there is currently a movement to add a fourth goal to the list.  To be an informed citizen one must not only follow the obvious social issues like taxes, international relations, and heath care, but also the research and technologies that shape our world.  Understanding the big bang theory or the ways that molecules interact might be able to assist in this process, but perhaps even more important is an appreciation of the variety of ways in which science and technology affect communities and vice versa. As science centers are both trusted and one of the few places where the general public actively engage science, they could provide a space for such engagements. 

We Want You! (And we promise it won’t hurt a bit)

Blog by Dr. Christine Knight, Genomics Forum Policy Research Fellow

This month I was extremely proud to launch the website for a new project designed to investigate the influence of literature on scientific thought and practice, What Scientists Read. If you’re a scientist, we’d love to hear from you about your reading habits and how these relate to your work. If you’re based in the Scottish Central Belt (Edinburgh, Glasgow or nearby) please consider signing up for a 1-hour interview. But no matter where you are in the world, you can contribute your thoughts and experiences via the online discussion. Please do get involved!

The project got off to a flying (if early!) start with an interview on BBC Radio Scotland in their breakfast programme on Wednesday 9 May. We’ve also been lucky enough to be covered on the New Scientist blog CultureLab, and the twitterati haven’t been silent, either – check us out @whatsciread.

For me personally one of the most exciting parts of the project is the opportunity to collect research data (scientists’ online contributions) at the same time as engaging with the public, scientists and other interested groups. By investing a relatively small amount of money in an online interface like this, we can create a genuinely international community and allow anyone, anywhere to keep up to date with what we’re doing. You can’t beat a traditional research interview for real-time, face-to-face discussion – but in practice any research project can usually only include a small number of interviews; they’re time-consuming to conduct and expensive to transcribe. In What Scientists Read we have the best of both worlds.

My fellow researchers on the project are Dr Sarah Dillon, Lecturer in Contemporary Fiction at the University of St Andrews, and Dr PippaGoldschmidt, the Genomics Forum’s Writer in Residence. Our scientific advisor is Miles Padgett, Professor of Optics at the University of Glasgow. What Scientists Read is funded by the Scottish Crucible, the professional development and leadership programme developed by NESTA for junior academics. Sarah and I were participants in Scottish Crucible 2011… which is how What Scientists Read got started.