Outlets for Communicating Science to the Public

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00:00:07.26 Hi. I'm Kishore Hari.
00:00:09.13 I'm the Director of the Bay Area Science Festival
00:00:11.07 at UC San Francisco.
00:00:12.28 And I'm here to tell you about
00:00:14.22 the Golden Age of Science Communication.
00:00:17.01 There are more outlets, more innovative strategies,
00:00:19.14 and just more science visibly being communicated
00:00:22.14 broadly across the world.
00:00:23.24 And there's a big appetite for that communication.
00:00:26.22 But before we get there, there's...
00:00:28.17 science communication is one of those catch-alls.
00:00:30.29 It refers to a lot of different types of...
00:00:33.06 forms of communication:
00:00:34.26 academic communication: scientist-to-scientist;
00:00:38.05 journalism: magazines, long-form, dedicated science reporters;
00:00:42.14 policy discussions, which include briefs to Congress;
00:00:46.19 op-eds;
00:00:48.10 institutional communication, which includes press releases, internal stories,
00:00:52.27 press conferences.
00:00:55.00 But the place I'll focus on
00:00:58.22 is informal science education,
00:01:00.08 which involves museums, exhibits, outreach programs from universities,
00:01:04.13 live events like science festivals, science cafes,
00:01:08.01 even science celebrities going on tours,
00:01:10.26 and new media including social media, blogs,
00:01:15.07 YouTube science shows...
00:01:17.23 that really increase a level of engagement in this...
00:01:22.26 in this form of science communication in ways that we have never seen.
00:01:26.20 And in these last three categories,
00:01:28.13 we've seen a tremendous growth over the last few years,
00:01:30.27 and I'm gonna highlight some of those.
00:01:33.26 Before we get there, scientists
00:01:36.18 are already engaged in science communication.
00:01:39.26 A recent survey from the AAAS showed
00:01:42.10 75% of their members have done some form of science communication.
00:01:45.27 A majority of them had done some form of K-12 based outreach
00:01:49.11 or some sort of outreach to the general public,
00:01:51.28 which included writing.
00:01:54.24 But there's barriers to this.
00:01:57.16 Most of them report their motivation for doing so
00:02:00.18 is to correct some sort of piece of misinformation
00:02:02.22 around science.
00:02:04.20 They want to convince people that their position
00:02:07.18 might be wrong,
00:02:09.11 or defend science in some way,
00:02:11.08 or just get people less disinterested in science.
00:02:16.16 Those end up being short-term goals.
00:02:18.13 There's a lot of social science work that indicates
00:02:20.18 that the better investment is in long-term goals,
00:02:23.09 in terms of building trust with science,
00:02:26.06 generating enthusiasm and excitement across many different publics,
00:02:30.22 and framing discussions where science is an input.
00:02:34.22 So, what's happened in the education field
00:02:36.27 is we've seen a shift
00:02:39.12 from public understanding of science,
00:02:41.05 where scientists push information out to many different publics
00:02:43.26 so they understand science in much more detail,
00:02:46.12 to public engagement,
00:02:48.18 where we're really bringing people in to participate
00:02:51.05 and interact with science in new and novel ways.
00:02:54.17 And that shift has produced an interesting continuum
00:02:57.04 of events and strategies
00:03:00.02 that are changing the nature of what we see
00:03:03.27 science communication to be.
00:03:05.22 So, I'm gonna give you a few examples
00:03:09.20 of communication along that continuum,
00:03:13.04 starting with the most basic one:
00:03:14.28 a science lecture.
00:03:17.18 That's really the currency of how science is communicated internally.
00:03:20.04 But that's being turned on its head.
00:03:22.18 Meet Shayle Matsuda.
00:03:24.06 He's a researcher at the California Academy of Sciences,
00:03:26.20 and he does not like Shark Week on Discovery Channel.
00:03:29.11 Shark Week is the bane of many different scientists
00:03:31.28 because it has a lot of misinformation.
00:03:34.05 In this particular year, they had run a documentary
00:03:37.28 on an ancient shark called Megalodon,
00:03:40.08 and suggested that it might still exist,
00:03:42.26 much to the distain of shark scientists everywhere.
00:03:46.27 So, Shayle came down to an event called Nerd Nite,
00:03:49.06 a casual lecture series in a bar,
00:03:52.05 and decided, instead of doing the normal lecture,
00:03:56.02 where I'm going to present all the myths and the misinformation
00:03:59.21 and let people understand
00:04:02.28 how what's happening on Shark Week is wrong...
00:04:05.18 decided to come up with a novel tweak.
00:04:08.01 He rapped about Shark Week.
00:04:10.06 He created an eight-minute rap
00:04:12.12 that included myths about Shark Week
00:04:14.22 but more importantly interjected his own personal passion for sharks
00:04:18.21 and why they deserve our love and attention.
00:04:20.23 He was met with a standing ovation.
00:04:23.00 And this utilization of storytelling
00:04:24.26 -- personal injection of your own story --
00:04:28.08 has become more and more utilized in science engagement.
00:04:31.28 And we even see shows like Story Collider,
00:04:34.06 which is a science storytelling show,
00:04:36.09 emerge on the scene
00:04:39.00 with chapters in New York, London, Boston,
00:04:41.19 and rapidly expanding across the country.
00:04:44.23 But what if we could go a step farther?
00:04:46.13 What if we could add...
00:04:48.04 add a level of interactivity
00:04:49.29 where the audience actually had input
00:04:52.13 into the science engagement?
00:04:54.11 Meet Emily Graslie.
00:04:56.09 She's the host of the incredibly popular YouTube show
00:04:58.17 The Brain Scoop.
00:05:00.08 She takes people behind the scenes of a collection museum
00:05:02.24 called the Field Museum in Chicago
00:05:04.19 and shows them the personalities and preparation
00:05:07.11 that goes into maintaining the museum
00:05:09.10 and the specimens therein.
00:05:10.25 And what she really focuses on
00:05:13.24 is a high-entertainment, high-energy show
00:05:17.26 that leverages all sorts of access and information
00:05:22.14 that you normally wouldn't get if you just visited the museum
00:05:25.02 on a daily basis.
00:05:26.18 But the key part is,
00:05:28.20 because it's on the platform of YouTube...
00:05:30.16 she uses social media and other platforms
00:05:32.20 for the audience to really engage and drive
00:05:34.28 what content she's going to produce and show.
00:05:37.06 So now, the audience has a direct input
00:05:40.04 into the show they're watching,
00:05:42.00 and they can access it on any device,
00:05:44.00 whether it's a phone, computer, or otherwise,
00:05:45.18 because it's on a distribution platform that reaches you everywhere.
00:05:49.07 Well, what if we can even go a step farther than this?
00:05:51.15 What if we can go from the interactive inquiry
00:05:54.11 through a device
00:05:57.18 to actually bringing people to authentic locations
00:05:59.24 where science is happening?
00:06:02.14 Well, here we are at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
00:06:05.02 And the Las Vegas Science Festival
00:06:07.03 took a number of people here
00:06:09.10 to meet the engineer that runs their incredible fountain show.
00:06:12.08 And the idea behind this was,
00:06:15.08 let's showcase that science isn't just happening in the lab,
00:06:17.08 that there's multiple facilities out there
00:06:19.05 where science and engineering take root.
00:06:22.01 And we got to take a look underneath the fountains
00:06:24.18 and meet the engineer, who had numerous stories about breakdowns,
00:06:27.09 and how the machinery worked,
00:06:29.13 and how...
00:06:31.20 how delicate some of this equipment was,
00:06:33.11 and he even showed us all of the coins
00:06:35.18 that people throw in there on a daily basis.
00:06:37.15 There's about 16 of the...
00:06:39.07 these buckets of coins that get thrown in on a daily basis.
00:06:42.24 But what was amazing is the local population that came to this event
00:06:46.00 had never thought about the Bellagio as a place where science happens.
00:06:49.15 And now they with a whole different perspective about that,
00:06:52.15 that was driven by that engineer.
00:06:54.27 So, location matters, and it matters a whole lot.
00:06:58.02 But what if we take that a step farther...
00:07:01.00 to a place where thousands of people come?
00:07:03.17 Here's a baseball game that the Phillies were playing in.
00:07:07.18 And this was during the Philadelphia Science Festival.
00:07:09.23 They had worked with the Phillies and Drexel
00:07:12.26 to build a robot to throw out a first pitch of the game.
00:07:16.15 And this actually got covered on SportsCenter that night,
00:07:19.01 so it reached popular media.
00:07:20.22 But what was amazing about it is
00:07:23.12 after they threw out the first pitch,
00:07:25.15 I was sitting in the stands and I was talking to a group of locals in front of me,
00:07:28.14 and they were asking all sorts of questions about the robot.
00:07:33.02 And I turned around, and there happened to be
00:07:35.17 a group of roboticists sitting there,
00:07:37.14 and they ended up talking for a couple innings about robotics.
00:07:40.20 Strangers that would have never met anywhere else...
00:07:42.29 but because these people came
00:07:47.10 and engaged a whole set of people at a baseball game,
00:07:49.12 they were able to have a conversation that never existed before.
00:07:51.21 And in 2014, almost two million people
00:07:54.10 went to science festivals across this country.
00:07:57.02 That really references that there's a huge appetite
00:08:00.24 for all of this work.
00:08:02.17 What if we went even a step farther than this?
00:08:05.00 We've now taken people...
00:08:07.04 taken science to where people already congregate.
00:08:09.03 What if we actually bring in expertise from other areas
00:08:11.27 so that science is sharing and consulting
00:08:14.24 with other different knowledge sets?
00:08:16.11 And so... science becomes an active participant
00:08:18.29 in a conversation.
00:08:20.29 Meet our “scientist in chief”, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
00:08:24.00 He hosts a new science late-night talk show
00:08:27.29 where he intermingles comedians, TV icons, and scientists
00:08:31.07 in a discussion about a broad societal issue.
00:08:33.07 And this intermingling of pop culture with science
00:08:36.22 is really interesting.
00:08:38.12 A lot of different engagement programs
00:08:40.24 now utilize this as a way of meeting their audience
00:08:43.02 where they already have passion and interest.
00:08:46.05 And what really happens is that science
00:08:48.16 just becomes a singular input to a larger discussion.
00:08:51.08 And within that larger discussion
00:08:53.07 we see a lot more eyeballs
00:08:56.09 come to the table.
00:08:57.16 But more than that, we see a lot more perspectives come,
00:08:59.27 because science happens in the context of society.
00:09:03.04 And this is just a great illustration of that in real life.
00:09:07.16 Well, what if we go even a step beyond this?
00:09:10.05 What if we don't just have scientists consulting?
00:09:13.04 What if we have them... people actively contributing.
00:09:18.10 This is the LegoScope project
00:09:21.02 that three graduate students here at UCSF constructed.
00:09:23.17 They worked with the design firm IDEO
00:09:26.22 to bring together students, teachers, designers
00:09:30.28 to think about how they could educate people around microscopy.
00:09:34.02 And after months of work and months of talking to people
00:09:36.22 and understanding their perspectives,
00:09:38.29 they built a modular telescope...
00:09:41.01 or, microscope that you could construct yourself out of Legos.
00:09:44.10 They really showcased the process of microscopy
00:09:47.04 in a whole new way,
00:09:49.01 and it was really fun and engaging
00:09:51.06 for a whole set of the youth.
00:09:53.28 But the real impact of this
00:09:56.20 is the idea of scientists reaching beyond their borders,
00:09:59.01 to people with other expertise that informs their work.
00:10:03.19 And this interdisciplinary approach
00:10:05.18 is what we already see in research,
00:10:07.22 and now we're seeing that reflected back into engagement.
00:10:10.14 It's no surprise.
00:10:12.12 What if we even went a step farther than this,
00:10:14.24 where instead of science leading the engagement,
00:10:17.23 they were an input into it?
00:10:20.04 All they did was help set up the situation
00:10:22.20 where problem-solving and curiosity could occur?
00:10:25.26 Well, welcome to the democratization of science.
00:10:29.06 We hear a lot about citizen science,
00:10:31.09 projects and ideas that are across a range
00:10:34.02 that allow people access to actively participate
00:10:36.16 in the research process.
00:10:38.18 But now, what we're seeing is a twist on that,
00:10:40.20 where science hackathons --
00:10:42.16 which bring together technologists and developers and designers and scientists
00:10:47.07 to work together on a common problem
00:10:49.21 that they don't come in with a preconceived notion about --
00:10:52.06 are emerging.
00:10:53.14 There was recently a biologist from UC Berkeley,
00:10:55.25 Liam Holt,
00:10:57.24 that worked together with a seamstress and a couple of engineers
00:11:00.23 to build a mask that would mimic the feeling of synesthesia.
00:11:04.26 Synesthesia is this neuroscience condition.
00:11:08.06 And what he did is he built a mask
00:11:11.01 that had speakers on it
00:11:12.27 that would help image the space,
00:11:14.16 and the... those speakers would translate a visual of this space
00:11:19.10 into sound and tactile response in this mask.
00:11:22.04 It was an unbelievable, hacked-together project
00:11:25.10 in just a 48-hour period.
00:11:27.02 But what it really laid the groundwork for was a set of relationships
00:11:29.29 that could actually inform science for many years to come.
00:11:33.08 This level of continuum,
00:11:36.11 going from lecture to interaction to location to real input,
00:11:43.22 where science is available as a resource for everyone,
00:11:49.09 is really changing the nature of how science is communicated.
00:11:53.27 And at the end of the day,
00:11:55.27 the engine of this has been scientists.
00:11:58.15 More and more across all of these events,
00:12:00.21 scientists and engineers
00:12:03.06 are the key factor that drives these.
00:12:05.16 And there's increasing data that shows that
00:12:10.23 their participation is enjoyable for them
00:12:14.06 and changes the way they approach science themselves.
00:12:18.14 In the end, the limiting factor
00:12:21.14 is just the creativity of scientists.
00:12:23.28 And we've seen an amazing slew of projects
00:12:26.22 just show up over the last couple years
00:12:28.29 due to their creativity.
00:12:30.18 So, I'm thrilled to think about what the next few years hold
00:12:34.03 when it comes to science communication,
00:12:36.23 because if our limiting factor is the creativity of scientists,
00:12:39.29 I'm optimistic that we're going to see
00:12:42.16 new, earth-shattering ideas
00:12:45.17 as we continue through the Golden Age of Science Communication.
00:12:48.08 Thank you.

This Talk

Speaker: Kishore Hari

Audience:

General Public
Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Student
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: May 2015

Talk Overview

Kishore Hari explains that we are in the golden age of science communication. From lectures to science festivals to citizen science projects, there has never been a time when so many outlets for communicating science have been available to the public. Scientists participating in these events get more out of the experience beyond the gratification of improving public engagement in science. They often find it enjoyable and energizing, inspiring new approaches in their own research.

Speaker Bio

Kishore Hari

Kishore Hari is the Director of the Bay Area Science Festival at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Hari joined UCSF in November 2009 as part of the science education outreach organization, Science and Health Education Partnership (SEP). Hari is dedicated to engaging the public in science through interactive and informal settings. Before joining… Continue Reading