Filter by keyword: Science education

Publications including this keyword are listed below.

36 publications found

Jun 17, 2025 Article

Examining science capital of adult audience members at public science events

Visitors to public science events (PSEs) often report gains in scientific knowledge, improved attitudes toward science, and a greater awareness of science in everyday life (Jensen & Buckley, 2012; Adhikari et al., 2019; Boyette & Ramsey, 2019). However, these visitors disproportionately come from white, well-educated backgrounds (Bultitude, 2014; Kennedy et al., 2018; Adhikari et al., 2019; Nielsen et al., 2019). This paper utilizes a science capital framework to analyze the differential patterns of participation among PSE audiences. Quantitative analysis approaches are used to explore the kinds of science capital that visitors bring to PSEs, how the science capital of audiences differs between events, and how science capital might predict future participation in PSEs. Results reveal that PSE visitors typically have high pre-existing levels of science capital and that those with high levels of science capital are more likely to express interest in attending future PSEs. Directions for future research and practice are discussed.

Volume 24 • Issue 03 • 2025

Dec 02, 2024 Practice Insight

Potentialities of science comics for science communication: lessons from the classroom

by Cláudia Faria, Bianor Valente and Joana Torres

The aim of this pilot study was to understand how the use of science comics, centred on complex scientific knowledge, can promote students' engagement with science, in order to discuss its potentialities as a tool to communicate science for the general public. The qualitative study involved 175 students and 7 teachers. The results revealed that the use of comics significantly increases students' motivation and commitment to the learning tasks. All participants highlighted that the narrative nature of comics, with a mixture of text and images, offering a story to follow, contributed to their engagement with the scientific topic, regardless of their complexity.

Volume 23 • Issue 08 • 2024

Apr 29, 2024 Article

Standards for science communication in extended and virtual reality: a model for XR/VR based on London Charter and Seville Principles

by Jose Luis Rubio Tamayo, Daniel Lewis Wuebben and Manuel Gertrudix

Videos featuring research results, laboratory tutorials, and online webinars are fundamental tools for disseminating science and boosting scientific impact. However, extended reality (XR) video technologies, which include virtual reality (VR), represent new challenges for scientists and science communicators. XR and VR can enhance, bend, or distort the reality surrounding scientific facts. The London Charter and Seville Principles are standards for computer-based visualization and reconstruction in a virtual reproduction of heritage sites and research in domains such as archaeology. Here, we develop a similar set of standards for the representation of scientific results in XR and VR and clarify the use of implicit XR and VR elements such as storytelling, setting, agency, interactivity, and other factors. Finally, the authors propose a framework XR/VR Model of Science Representation and Communication, derived from the context and other frameworks for representing information in virtual environments.

Volume 23 • Issue 03 • 2024

Apr 15, 2024 Article

Citizen science and learning outcomes: assessment of projects in South Africa

by Nonsikelelo Sackey, Corlia Meyer and Peter Weingart

This study assessed educational goals and learning outcomes in 57 citizen science projects in South Africa. Emphasising data collection as the primary objective, the findings revealed a secondary focus on environmental awareness, protection, and management, as well as education and research advancement. Notably, educational goals were often not prioritised, and formal measures for assessing learning outcomes were infrequently employed by project leaders. The study underscores the necessity for systematic approaches to evaluate the educational impacts of citizen science projects in South Africa.

Volume 23 • Issue 03 • 2024

Mar 25, 2024 Essay

Broadening adult engagement and education in science cafés: lessons from an STS — science communication boundary spanning experiment

by Karen A. Rader and CJ Gibbs

This essay describes and reflects on a collaboration between a university Science & Technology Studies (STS) educator and a community science café organizer. Our partnership was designed to address two challenges: how to encourage diversity and inclusion in science café audiences and how to create assessments for broader ‘science in society’ content delivered to adult café learners. We used focus groups to develop STS learning constructs and do community engagement needs assessments. We describe the resultant café series development and other outcomes of our cross-domain work in STS, science communication, and science education. We conclude with observations about the power of collaborative storytelling and make general recommendations for how practitioners and scholars can address the described challenges in ways that might ease future collaborations.

Volume 23 • Issue 02 • 2024 • Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward

Feb 26, 2024 Book Review

An idea-packed guide for scientists teaching communication skills

by Andy Ridgway

“Teaching Science Students to Communicate: A Practical Guide” is aimed at scientists who want to teach science students transferrable communication skills. It starts with a rallying cry and is filled with creative ideas for teaching sessions with top tips on how to run them effectively. Above all, this book should help scientists instil a disposition in their students that should underpin any act of communication — empathy.

Volume 23 • Issue 01 • 2024

Dec 04, 2023 Article

Emotional responses from families visiting the zoo: a study at Parque das Aves in Foz do Iguaçu

by Graziele Scalfi, Luisa Massarani, Waneicy Gonçalves, Adriana Aparecida Andrade Chagas and Alessandra Bizerra

In this study, we aim to analyse human emotional responses towards animals, specifically birds, in the context of a visit to a zoo. The study was carried out with seven families in Parque das Aves. The visits were recorded using the point-of-view-camera method, and the data was analysed using qualitative software to identify emotion descriptors. The findings from our study reveal that the physical characteristics of birds, such as their patterns and colours, as well as their behaviours and abilities, triggered emotional responses that were associated with admiration for the species, concern for their well-being and awareness of conservation issues, enabling these families to construct meaning.

Volume 22 • Issue 05 • 2023

Aug 21, 2023 Essay

Looking back to launch forward: a self-reflexive approach to decolonising science education and communication in Africa

by Temilade Sesan and Ayodele Ibiyemi

The imbalance in the global scientific landscape resulting from the enduring legacy of colonialism in the south and the hegemony of scientific paradigms originating in the north is immense. Our paper makes a case for employing traditional knowledge systems and paradigms as tools for redressing this imbalance in African societies. To achieve this goal, the paper argues, scholars and science communicators must actively pursue a radical, “power-literate” agenda of scientific decolonisation on the continent. Central to this mission is the need for scholars to be equipped with a keen sense of the past — including an understanding of what worked for knowledge production and perpetuation in pre-colonial African societies — without which science education and communication in those societies will remain untethered from the realities of the present and their visions for the future. Concurrently, attention must be given to nurturing home-grown paradigms and platforms for research in higher education that are rigorous yet unencumbered by the age-long tendency to refract African experiences through northern lenses.

Volume 22 • Issue 04 • 2023

Jul 17, 2023 Article

Science by means of memes? Meanings of Covid-19 in Brazil based on Instagram posts

by Wilmo Ernesto Francisco Junior, Tereza Cristina Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, Biânca Luiz dos Santos Costa and Rafaella Lima Gomes

This study aimed at analyzing Brazilian memes posted on Instagram about Covid-19, in which scientific concepts were intertwined with the message. The research was based on virtual ethnography and the analysis considered the multimodal structure of memes following principles of the Grammar of Visual Design. Only twelve memes out of a universe of 83 identified (14.5%) presented knowledge about science interdependently with meanings that could be produced. One of the core aspects is the complexity of both representations and scientific concepts in memes about Covid-19. Scientific aspects, humor and irony were associated with social and political criticism through different multimodal interactions.

Volume 22 • Issue 04 • 2023

Jun 20, 2023 Article

Living labs contributions to smart cities from a quadruple-helix perspective

by Daniel Esashika, Gilmar Masiero and Yohann Mauger

This paper explores living labs' contributions to smart cities from a quadruple-helix perspective. The selected exploratory case studies (Living Lab Florianópolis, Living Lab of the Itaipu Technological Park and Porto Digital) depict an institutional context characterized by a low interaction between the quadruple-helix components. The data were obtained through document analysis and interviews with living lab organizers and participants. The results suggest living labs can contribute by a) selecting the most promising projects to promote, b) connecting several agents and sharing informational through collaborative practices and events, c) facilitating mediation between participants in living labs and government agencies, universities and local companies to conduct tests, and d) inserting the fourth helix as a tester but not as a co-creator. These findings explain the participation of quadruple-helix components in the stages of project selection, development, and testing developing living labs. Finally, this article contradicts the predominant notion that living labs remain based on user-oriented innovation processes, purporting a producer-oriented trajectory.

Volume 22 • Issue 03 • 2023 • Special Issue: Living labs under construction: paradigms, practices, and perspectives of public science communication and participatory science