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Oct 22, 2007 Article

The biography of scientists as a means of communicating science: analogies concerning a hermeneutic or empirical problem

Sometimes scientists live real dramas or undergo social and psychological conflicts which have a positive or negative influence on the development and recognition of their research, discoveries and inventions in society, including the way they are recorded in history. This being so, the question is: to what extent can science be communicated to the public at large by the use of scientists' biographies as a motivational strategy? The controversy arises from the fact that usual (classical) science has traditionally argued for the separation (or de-linking) of the research (the object) from the researcher (the subject).Thus, if the above-mentioned motivational strategy is used in scientific communication, it could break a dominant methodological trend and consequently lead to a questioning of the myth of axiological neutrality in science. The communication of science by means of scientists' biographies could be useful for reaching a specific public, more directed towards emotional aspects, thereby awakening its interest in science, even amid cultural differences and in environments where interest in science and its utility is lacking. It could also reveal human aspects of the everyday life of scientists, bringing them closer to the public at large, which would contribute to the dissemination of science and knowledge.

Volume 6Issue 042007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

Scientific education and European citizenship. Suggestions and results from the European project SEDEC

by Roberto Ceriani

Two concepts seemingly distant from each other, scientific education and European citizenship, have been the basis for "SEDEC - Science Education for the Development of European Citizenship", a European project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Socrates/Comenius programme, aiming at producing training material addressed to European teachers. Started in autumn 2005, the project will end in 2008 with an in-service training course for European teachers and educators.

European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

by Lauretta D'Angelo

Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

Science and scientists in the drawings of European children

by Paola Rodari

What is a scientist’s job? From the drawings to the citizenship

by Etienne Bolmont

Teachers' perception of the European scientists

by Daniele Gouthier

From the perception of science to the design of teaching materials

by Laura Dumbrăveanu

Debating as an educational method to science and citizenship

by Sara Calcagnini

School staff training: the opportunities offered by National Agencies in European countries

by Chris Souvlis

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

The idea to link European citizenship and science education is surely new and uncommon in Poland, but we think, as SEDEC project, that can enrich both the panorama of science popularization outside and inside school system. I checked carefully curricula for every stage of school education looking for the topics concerning the developing of the European citizenship. I found that they are usually connected to the history, geography and some activities developing of the knowledge about generally defined citizenship. The spare topics connected directly to the science are present especially in grammar school curriculum. They may be divided into three groups: exploiting the common heritage, common object of interest and scientific community respectively. In that paper I would like to show how the activities in each of the group may influence the EU citizenship developing process. I am going to emphasize the good choice of science as a context or a medium for EU citizenship education. It may be an important point especially in Central Europe. Additionally I would like to present some auxiliary events that are enable through the external educational resources such as museum and planetarium.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

What is a scientist’s job? From the drawings to the citizenship

by Etienne Bolmont

IUFM is a centre for the in-service training of teachers and the development of didactic research. IUFM contribution to the SEDEC project is essentially built on a reflexion on educational implications of the links between science and European citizenship. We are convinced that European citizenship may be developed in scientific activities in school, by the introduction of communication moments, where pupils have to express and defend their ideas, and also to understand and accept the others’ ones. We have implemented two activities using the results of the SEDEC survey on science perception, that make the pupils get a better view on scientific research, especially in the knowledge of two scientific “jobs”, astronomer and botanist. Our approach consists of allowing the children express their conceptions of these jobs, of organising a debate to clarify these ideas, and of confronting them with other pupils’ opinions in Europe, with the history of the involved science and with direct testimonies of scientists. The project should be pursued in allowing classes in Europe to communicate about a scientific problem and so, to live their European citizenship.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Article

Science on the net: an analysis of the websites of the European public research institutions

by Laura Massoli

This article introduces a study on the websites of several European public research institutions that aims at identifying the science communication model chosen and implemented online with the purpose of reaching different target publics. The analytical approach takes into account a number of indicators: from the institutional identity to the scientific features, from the interactive services to the internationalisation level, in order to evaluate whether the web provides an added value in the adopted communication model and in building a relation with the users. Lights and shades emerge from this study in which good practices side examples of a much weaker science communication approach, outlining a general context where a public research institution website has been still used as a presentation tool and its interactive opportunities have not been capitalised.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

by Lauretta D'Angelo

In the course of the last decade the European debate on the concept of citizenship has shown that a definition of this concept in strictly legal and jurisprudence terms is reductive. Indeed a behavioral element is present, which goes beyond the defence and request for defence of rights and duties, but actually stresses the importance of acting within a community (or within several communities). A citizenship belonging to a given space/time context which, to be authentic, requires know-how and know-how-to-be that can be gained in different training opportunities (formal, informal etc.) with various active learning methodologies and through experience. The SEDEC project aims to investigate which teaching methodologies and activities specifically developed for the teaching of sciences can be applied in other learning contexts, in order to sustain actions for developing an active citizenship.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

Teachers' perception of the European scientists

by Daniele Gouthier

The first step of the SEDEC project has been a survey on teachers and pupils perception of science, scientists, and the European dimension of science. Different research actions have been organized for the different targets, and have been held in the six countries involved in the project: Czech Republic, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Romania. This article will present the results of a questionnaire distributed between European teachers. A research on the scientific imagery should have an opposite perspective to the one of a teacher at school; whereas the latter, the keeper of a knowledge, has the usual task of transferring and checking the knowledge in their students, a researcher has to record and describe their interior world relating to science – the information, but especially the images, the expectations, the emotions related to it.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Commentary

School staff training: the opportunities offered by National Agencies in European countries

by Chris Souvlis

In 2007 the Life Long Learning Programme (previously Socrates) of the European Commission has started. The programme offers to teachers, educators and policy-makers of the education sector the opportunity to be funded for participating at various training courses organized in all EU countries by international networks and projects. The SEDEC course will be included in that list in 2008. The article shortly present how to ask for a grant.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Article

CNRS researchers' popularization activities: a progress report

by Pablo Jensen , Yves Croissant

We have analyzed the popularization activities undertaken by ten thousand CNRS researchers by means of their annual reports for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. This is the first time that such an extensive statistical study on science popularization practices is carried out. Our main findings are : - the majority of researchers is not involved in popularization (51% has not done any popularization over the three-year period, two thirds have been involved in no more than one popularization action). - popularization practices are extremely diverse, both at the individual level (we have identified three subpopulations that feature distinctive attitudes towards popularization), and at the level of scientific disciplines (researchers in Humanities are twice as active as the average), as well as in laboratories or geographical regions. - the number of actions reported in 2005 greatly increased compared to 2004 (+ 26%), while they slightly diminished in 2006.

Volume 6Issue 032007

Sep 20, 2007 Editorial

Vatican-branded science communication

by Nico Pitrelli

The summer now gone has reported two episodes we would like to bring to the attention of the JCOM readers. Two minor pieces of news, unlikely to be in the limelight over the summer, when the media understandably focus on gossips and crime news. Even the experts – especially outside the Italian territory – would probably dismiss these events as minor, wouldn’t it be for the people involved. But let’s see the facts.

Volume 6Issue 032007

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