Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with Science

Public Engagement with Science Diagram

Is nanotechnology safe? How should we respond to the possibility of catastrophic global climate change? Faced with profound personal and societal questions like these, we need the best scientific knowledge available. We also need opportunities for scientists, decision makers, and the public to exchange knowledge and perspectives “in a way that fosters responsible and appropriate scientific knowledge production and decision making"--and the informal science education sector is well positioned to help. That's the conclusion of a CAISE Inquiry Group that over the past year has been studying public engagement with science in informal media like television, museums, and science cafes.

The ISE sector has been inspired in part by policy-oriented groups like the UK's New Economics Foundation. Several years ago, Ecsite, the European science center network, adapted a NEF model called DEMOCS --"part card game, part policy-making tool that enables small groups of people to engage with complex public policy issues"--for use in settings like museums. The result was Decide (Deliberative Citizens' Debates), which has been adopted around the world.

In the United States, NSF's Informal Science Education program has supported public engagement with science activities across a range of media. Among them are WBGH's NOVA scienceNOW science cafes (see Spotlight); Fred Friendly Seminars on The Power of Small television series; and public forums organized by members of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network. These approaches, while varied, have some features in common. They are characterized, the Inquiry Group reports, by

  • "mutual learning" by publics and scientists and in some cases also policy makers
  • opportunities for "people with varied backgrounds and scientific expertise to articulate and contribute their perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and values in response to scientific questions or science-related controversies."

Download the report:
Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with Science in ISE (full report, PDF, 3MB)
Many Experts, Many Audiences: Executive Summary (PDF, 472KB)

Join a discussion about the report during the American Association of Museums Meeting, May 3, in Philadelphia.