1. Communicating Climate Change (C3) This project is supported by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
2. Connecting Global Change to Local Impacts Americans view climate change as a challenge that is distant in both location and time Challenge: How can we make climate change local and immediate? Solution: Create programming around local impacts of climate change
3. C3 Team 12 Science Center and Museums and Research Partners: Museum of Discovery and Science, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque New York Hall of Science, Queens Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, San Diego, California Saint Louis Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri Arizona Science Center, Phoenix Bishop Museum, Honolulu Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, California EdVenture, Columbia, South Carolina Franklin Institute, Philadelphia Maryland Science Center, Baltimore Sciencenter, Ithaca, New York
4. C3 Programming Exhibits Curriculum Development Teacher Training After School Programs Lecture Series Community Conversations Citizen Science How can these types of programming support each other?
5. Chabot Space & Science CenterOakland, California Citizen science and community conversation topics overlapped Science partner acted as presenter and facilitator at community conversation Reinforced connection between global and local
6. Saint Louis Science CenterSt. Louis, Missouri Citizen scientists acted as experts and facilitators during a community conversation. Teens who participated in the citizen science program had a richer community conversation experience than those who did not.
Editor's Notes
Kate from ASTCCoPIs: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Yale
Distant in time, distant in spaceHow can we make climate change more local and immediate?Have science centers partner with scientists to develop programming around indicators of local impacts of global climate changeSo we wanted to figure out how to make climate change feel more local and immediate. The solution that we came up with was to have science centers partner with local scientists to develop programming around local indicators of climate change. So, that was how C3 was born.
12 science centers span the countryIndicators are varied – sea turtles, redwoods, bark beetleIndicators have relevance to the community
- After indicators, had to find science partner and develop programming- Programming ranges from a few exhibits to curriculum development and teacher training- Most successful: citizen science and community conversations.- These were originally two independent components, but now starting to think about how these types of programming can support each other- Jennifer will speak more generally next- I’ll give two examples that made us start to think about the possibilities for integrating community conversations and citizen science
First was Chabot. Indicator: sword fernsCommunity conversations all follow the same format- Chabot has very active citizen science partner it seemed clear that they should draw on her expertise to help lay the groundwork for discussion- Unlike other experts that day, her presentation drew upon science that had happened at the science center done by citizen scientists- She also did one of the hands-on demos and served as a facilitator during the conversations- Goal of community conversations is to address issues that are important in the community. With big, global issues about climate change, it can be difficult to make the connections. Citizen science was key.
- Different set-up: we had the citizens instead of the scientist involved in the community conversation- Participants in St. Louis are the Youth Exploring Science or YES teens, existing group - Community conversation focused on climate change and community health, not citizen science topic- But YES teens were well-versed in climate change and local impacts and were able to lead demos and act as facilitators- One thing we worry about is having a broad audience. Originally designed with adults in mind, but target audience for many science centers is family/kids. How to incorporate them? Can they have the same discussions as adults?Good control group: YES teens who didn’t participate in citizen science didn’t participate in the conversations to the extent that the citizen science participants did. - These are a few of the things that made us start to think about exploring the connections between these two components of our project.- We saw how citizen science helped ground community conversations in the community, particularly when we’re talking about big issues like climate change.- We saw how community conversations offered the chance for citizen scientists to share their knowledge and experiences.- Not the only connections, but they’re things we saw before we even began trying to connect the two.- Turn things over to Jennifer now.
