Delineating+a+Project+EF

Research in Public Engagement of the Sciences and the transformation of this engagement due to the “digital age”

1. (Discourse of Making) There is a current trend of making and hands-on physicality that seems antithetical to the movement toward the virtual. What are the implications for this resurgence of “Making” and a focus on the material in the increasingly digital age? Is this a back lash to digital technology, or is it a parallel progression that coincides with the availability of helpful information and instructions online to foster the making movement? This theory could possibly be explained by such online skill-sharing communities as Instructables.org. This is a current development that I would like to explore in my research. In considering the future, I will explore critical-making and how technical practices of the “maker” could follow a route that does not solely lead toward military robotics or the “gee whiz that’s cool” mentality. In this sense, making could be more in tune and reflective of the needs of local communities and an important resource for aiding the public in day-to-day life, but how? Is this something to work toward within the maker movement, and how might this possibility

2. (Maker and Citizen Science communities) This work is seeking to explore the different communities built around various media of public engagement. Again the digital versus the real-world scenario comes up as an issue. Is there more community building and engagement through makerspaces that have a physical location and space out of which to work? Or is the online community of makers as efficacious of a community via skill-sharing and attention to the issues at hand? This aspect will also explore citizen science groups such as bird-watchers and sky-survey groups, who interface in the physical world, but often report and engage information in the digital realm. This indicates that there does not have to be a direct binary of the virtual and the real, but a hybrid reality in which aspects of each form can help communities to foster communication, engagement, resources for learning, as well as collection and analysis of data. An important aspect to explore in this section is the visibility and inclusiveness of these groups, the amount of people they reach out to, and their visibility to the greater public sphere. What types of lay expertise are considered important or valid in these contexts, and are certain individuals or communities excluded from these practices?

3. (History of public engagement) Public engagement within the sciences has a long history and is no recent phenomenon. As there is a shift from the phsycial/material world to the virtual in terms of information-sharing and communication, is there a drastic change within the discourse of public engagement? Does there seem to be a trend toward more or less engagement and more or less diversity among the engaged communities? These may prove to be hard questions to pin down, and so I might focus within this section on the historical trajectory of public engagement to help inform where it stands now. This includes looking at museums and their evolving displays of scientific information as well as how scientific information is transmitted on-line and in the classroom. This exploration poses questions regarding the efficacious nature of science engagement with the public, particularly in the socially critical and participatory sense.