Newsletter - Issue 6, March/April 2009

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.

Full Report (PDF 3MB)  |  Executive Summary (PDF 472KB)

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News and Updates

Upcoming Meetings and Events

CAISE Inquiry Groups will be reporting out and hosting conversations at these upcoming meetings and conferences.

  • April 19, 4:00–5:50 pm National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Garden Grove, California
    CAISE Symposium: Exploring the ISE Landscape and Determining Value in Informal Science Contexts, John Falk, Presider.
  • May 3 American Association of Museums (AAM) Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Public Engagement: Giving the Public a Voice within our Field. Larry Bell, Museum of Science, Boston; Ellen McCallie, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh; Tiffany Lohwater, Public Engagement Manager, AAAS, Washington, DC.
  • Hold the date—The next CAISE national meeting, the ISE Summit 2010, is scheduled for: March 3-5, 2010 in Washington, D.C.

Image Credits

  • NOVA scienceNOW Science Cafes:
    Image © 2008 Ben Wiehe
  • Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with
    Science: Graphic courtesy WGBH, Boston, MA.

In the Spotlight:

NOVA scienceNOW Science Cafes

Photo by Ben Wiehe

NOVA scienceNOW Science Cafés are an outreach program of a science news and magazine television series produced by WGBH, Boston, funded in part by NSF’s Informal Science Education program (#0638931). The series, which began airing in January 2005, aims to increase public awareness and understanding of cutting-edge science, while the related Science Cafés go further, aiming to engage a broad and diverse public in dialogue with scientists in casual, non-academic settings like pubs and cafés. Evaluations are showing that the program is succeeding in attracting the young adults who are its primary target audience and even helping to catalyze and connect more grassroots cafés across the United States.

In planning its NOVA scienceNOW Science Cafés, WGBH was inspired by the Café Scientifique movement that began in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. Initial experiments proved encouraging. Events drew large numbers of young adults (aged 18-35) and also female participants, few of whom had watched the television series NOVA. When WGBH proposed the new television series, the Science Café was built in as a major outreach initiative.

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About CAISE

The Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) works to strengthen and connect the informal science education community by catalyzing conversation and collaboration across the entire field—including film and broadcast media, science centers and museums, zoos and aquariums, botanical gardens and nature centers, digital media and gaming, science journalism, and youth, community, and after-school programs. Founded in 2007 with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), CAISE is a partnership among the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), Oregon State University (OSU), the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE), and the Visitor Studies Association (VSA). CAISE is housed at ASTC’s Washington, D.C. offices.

CAISE