Explore key resources for enhancing public engagement with STEM and discover strategies for meaningful informal science education.
Read about current trends in science communication and science communication-related activities around the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) in SciComm Spotlight, the monthly column of the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies’ Science Communication (SciComm) certificate program. To see previous SciComm Spotlight columns, visit the program’s website.
On a visit to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore this fall, I was observing our 6-year-old son Tommy having the time of his life running all over the place. Sure, he has a lot of energy, as most 6-year-olds are bound to have, so any space that lets him run meets his approval, but there is something special about the way he engages with his surroundings at the science center. We started taking him there around his third birthday, became members, have been up and down those stairways multiple times, and have enjoyed the planetarium shows more times than I can count on one hand.
During this most recent visit, I saw our son being mesmerized by one item in particular: the giant ball launcher in the center’s lobby that catapults a tennis ball easily 15 feet into the air. To activate the pressure mechanism to propel the tennis ball up in the air, you need to pull a thick rope. With delight, Tommy threw his whole weight at this task, often assisted by other kids equally mesmerized by this contraption.
I admit to being mesmerized myself by the gradual and predictable arc of the ball being propelled into the air, always falling back into the net below. In addition to my delight in seeing our child have the time of his life, I started thinking about how such a seemingly simple contraption is a gateway to a lifelong love of all things science. Science centers or museums, like the one we frequently visit in Baltimore, are prime sites for informal science learning and public engagement with science.
I started reflecting on my relationship with science or STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — some add an additional M to STEM, for medicine, making it STEMM. I grew up in a small village adjacent to a small town in the larger Rhineland region in Germany. I don’t remember too much exposure to STEM-related activities during my childhood. There certainly was nothing like the Maryland Science Center where I grew up, and there weren’t any science shows like the Science Guys of Baltimore that would come to local libraries. This past summer, Tommy and I went to a delightful Science Guys at our local public library that incidentally also included a pressurized air experiment; this one, though, involved plastic tubes and ping-pong balls!
So why is public engagement with science like science centers, science shows, and myriad other informal ways to learn about STEM important? Several studies about informal science learning (ISL) or informal STEM learning, which are forms of public engagement with science, have demonstrated that regular and varied exposure to STEM content outside of traditional educational settings is key to positively impacting people’s interests in and attitudes toward science.
If you want to find out more about public engagement with science, there are many resources that are treasure troves for anyone involved in scientific research. These resources, in my experience, do two main things. One, they help us understand how many people across the United States engage and interact with science outside of educational and research-focused spaces, like schools, universities, and labs. Second, they can help us understand how to communicate science with public audiences and engage with audiences more meaningfully.
Here are three of these resources that my faculty colleagues and I regularly use in our classes in the Science Communication certificate program at UMB. I am certain that you will find them as engaging and informational as I and my students have:
1. The Public Face of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1807, is one of the oldest honorary societies and independent research centers in the United States dedicated to “inform public policy and advance the public good” through cross-disciplinary efforts. In the mid-2010s, the academy initiated a multiyear project called The Public Face of Science dedicated to exploring the relationship between scientists and public audiences. In total, the academy published three reports, “Perceptions of Science in America” in 2018, “Encountering Science in America” in 2019, and “The Public Face of Science in America: Priorities for the Future” in 2020. All three reports are accessible on the academy’s website and provide great insight into public engagement with science.
2. Public Engagement with Science, National Informal STEM Education (NISE) Network
The NISE network is dedicated to creating resources that support learning opportunities for informal STEM education. Its goal is to connect informal science education institutions and research organizations to enhance public awareness, understanding, and engagement with STEM. One of its free resources is a guide for public engagement in science. This guide grew out of a grant issued by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Museum of Science in Boston for a project called Multi-Site Public Engagement with Science — Synthetic Biology. It offers an overview of public engagement with science activities and provides strategies to create, execute, and assess events to engage public audiences with various STEM content.
3. Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center
In 2022, the REVISE Center took up the work that the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) started in 2007. Funded by NSF, the REVISE Center serves as a resource center for NSF’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program. Its website houses a broad variety of resources for anyone interested in learning more about informal STEM education, including the Broadening Participation Toolkit, originally developed by CAISE.
Isabell Cserno May, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies, where she directs and teaches in the Science Communication certificate program. May also directs the UMB Writing Center and is passionate about equity-based and social justice-oriented pedagogies.