Last Thursday (August 4th) we had a great discussion on the obstacles to accurately communicating science to the public and lawmakers. A lot of good points came up. To name a couple:
1. It would be a good idea to train researchers in media communication. The University has an office dedicated to this, but many of the career development classes in our graduate programs do not feature a session. Perhaps in a future Broad Impacts session we can invite the Media Office.
2. The realities of science need to be taught to high school students. Many non-scientists do not understand how long and arduous scientific discovery can be. Furthermore, they can begin to distrust researchers when new explanations for diseases are developed every year. The constantly evolving and self-correcting nature of science should be better emphasized.
If you have other points from our discussion, please post them in a comment for those who could not make the discussion last Thursday. The presentation is available for viewing here, for those of you who couldn't make it. Also, here is the presentation from the first Broad Impacts session.
We hope to see you at the next session!
I found a related article in Science this week:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6043/688.full?rss=1
The article is about the strain on high school science teachers when they teach about climate change. Enjoy reading and I hope to see you at the next
discussion!
-Eric
p.s. To access the article you need a subscription to Science. Anyone accessing it from the U of MN network will have instant access.