Assessing scientific citizenship through science centre visitor studies

Abstract

As science museums and centres (SMC) broaden their practices to include the development of scientific citizenship, evaluation needs also to take account of this dimension of their practices. It requires complex methods to understand better the impacts of public participation in activities mediated by SMC, including their impacts on the governance of the SMC themselves.

Information-Sharing and Community-Building: Exploring the Use of Twitter in Science Public Relations

“…To obtain a clearer understanding of social media utilization patterns in science public relations, we examined the public relations efforts of one of America's largest nationwide science networks, the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network, with a particular focus on the social media activities connected with its NanoDays events. The NanoDays festival takes place at more than 250 institutions such as science museums, children's museums, and university-based research centers across the United States, encompassing events ranging from public forums and tours of laboratories to a wide array of hands-on activities (e.g., Bandelli, 2014;Bandelli & Konijn, 2013;Bell, 2008). From an estimated 69,000 attendees at 100 sites in 2008, NanoDays nearly tripled in popularity by 2015, to 183,555 attendees at 250 sites (Svarovsky, Goss, & Kollmann, 2015).…”

“…In practice, the increasing adoption of this two-way model by science communicators means that they position contact between scientific experts and lay audiences as conversations among equals (Scheufele, 2014). As part of the larger public upstream movement, the twoway model is applied in informal science-learning forums, science festivals, and similar events (e.g., Bandelli, 2014).…”

Children as curators: how to incorporate young visitors’ voices into the elaboration and evaluation of a microbiology exhibition

“…Science museums in particular are becoming important locations for strengthening scientific culture (Bandelli, 2014). One of the important communication mechanisms used in this process by these institutions is long-term exhibitions, and evaluation of these exhibitions has become a powerful tool for improving the interaction between museums and the public.…”

Crianças em visitas familiares a museus de ciências: análise do processo de alfabetização científica

“…Diante as diferentes abordagens e perspectivas para medir a alfabetização científica que surgiram ao longo dos anos, observa-se que o mais importante é que elas devam ser adequadas aos objetivos do estudo. Sobre isso, Laugksch (1999, p. 89 NERESINI, 2008, MASSARANI, 2012BANDELLI, 2014).. Em especial, a ferramenta incorporou as discussões mais recentes do tema da apropriação social da ciência (COLCIÊNCIAS, 2010(COLCIÊNCIAS, , 2014DAZA-CACIEDO, 2013), e as dimensões econômicas e políticas da abordagem da ciência no ensino (ERDURAN, MUGALOGLU, 2013). Também deu destaque aos aspectos relacionados a abordagem de temáticas controversas, contemporâneas e polêmicas em torno da ciência, tecnologia e inovação (PEDRETTI, 2002;MAZDA, 2004;CONTIER;MARANDINO, 2007;CONTIER, 2009) e reuniu ideias de alfabetização científica associada a educação científica com abordagem CTSA (AIKENHEAD, 1994;SANTOS, 2007a;STRIEDER, 2012;STRIEDER;KAWAMURA, 2014).…”