The resources and resources-in-development linked to this page originated at the New England Workshop on Science and Social Change (NewSSC)—"innovative, interaction-intensive workshops designed to facilitate discussion, teaching innovation, and longer-term collaboration among faculty and graduate students who teach and write about interactions between scientific developments and social change."
The form of the resources emerging from NewSSC are varied, ranging from educational activities for high school and college classrooms, through methods of public outreach and involvement and guides to the use of technological tools in education and outreach to reports on projects informed or inspired by participation in NewSSC. Some of the resources here stand on their own, that is, readers can understand their purpose, primary audience, and possible extensions well enough to adopt and adapt them for their own situations. (After review these are posted on http://www.stv.umb.edu/orsseo.html.) Others may be most useful to readers if they seek advice and coaching from the authors. (Reciprocally, the authors may benefit from the questions and experience of others.) Still others, including the more personal reports, may require distillation and revision before they become resources for others. The character of each resource or resource-in-development is indicated by the annotations in development that accompany the links below.
Funding for the NewSSC workshops has been provided by the National Science Foundation [2004: SES-0402142;2006-8: SES-0551843].
Metaphor in Science: A Modular Teaching Unit, Brendon Larson Undergraduates, Teaching unit
A series of exercises (using a variety of methods, including critical reading/text analysis, guided free-writing, small group discussion, and class discussion) designed to help undergraduate students (or others) reflect upon scientific metaphors and their implications. In particular, they should help students to better understand the following:
o Metaphors are common in science
o Scientific metaphors have diverse functions, both epistemic and social
o They powerfully "frame" the way we relate to an issue/phenomenon
o They can be interpreted in diverse ways, some of which may be unexpected
o These interpretations can have social implications
o It is challenging to evaluate scientific metaphors and/or to attempt to modify them, but in some cases there may be political reasons for doing so.
Evaluating perspectives within a discipline: thinking critically about values and science in ecological reconstruction, Jan Coe Undergraduates, Teaching unit
Critical thinking skills are important for the kind of thoughtful citizens we need in order to be better stewards of our environments, including everyone and everything in them. The critical thinking skills that students use in this unit are transferable to a whole array of disciplines and issues. In the discipline of restoration ecology, the perspectives on science and values can be closely scrutinized via the arguments advanced in the literature. By critically reading and analyzing representative texts, students can form an opinion or judgment about the strength or weakness of different positions and learn how to defend a position. Synthesizing the ideas and arguments in their own words will enable them to better argue from a chosen position or perspective.
An Introduction to the Multiple Perspectives on Ecological Restoration, An exploration of human-nature relationship through the particular practice of ecological restoration, Yen-Chu Weng Undergraduates, Teaching unit
Designed as a three-week teaching activity. From the official definition of ecological restoration to the exploration of multiple perspectives on ecological restoration, the proposed program integrates lectures, group discussion, and case study to guide students to expand the scope of ecological restoration and think about how to compromise among these diverse perspectives and propose a commonly accepted solution to a hypothetical scenario.
Three articles chosen to show the the ‘translation’ of research for the general audience--the original scientific publication, a report on it in the same journal, and a report in the newspapers. Students read one of the articles, discuss it and decide what they think they know from the article and what evidence there is to support the conclusion, then present their article to the whole group. We discuss the responsibilities of the scientists to prevent their research being misused in someone’s social agenda.
Problem-based learning (PBL) scenario and "KAQ" guidelines that require students to brainstorm and explore so as to identify problems related to the scenario that they are motivated to investigate quickly yet deeply and to report back in the form of succinct “briefings” or “substantive statements.” The scenario involves a request from the "Conservation Association of Greater Springfield" (which is considering a major campaign on restoration of streams in their area) to “help us understand the ‘menu’ of pathways we might follow to influence stream restoration over the long term.”
Metaphors play a significant role in shaping our conceptions of the biological world. This has benefits but leads to a narrowing of the options. Scientific metaphors are necessarily drawn from the social milieu in which scientists live, so they tend to reflect large-scale cultural assumptions. Applying these concerns to conservation biology and its ally, restoration ecology, which seek to conserve and/or restore natural systems, this activity focuses on one molecular barcoding, which is being developed as a tool for the assessment of biodiversity
Activity designed to allow students to visualize the relationships between intact and disturbed systems and their personal connections to those systems.
A scenario to help students reflect on the problem of anthropogenic global warming: what it is, what causes it and what we can do to prevent it. The scenario posed is of a situation of global emergency, where scientists have determined that the human race has only two weeks until the world as we know it now ends. Put into practice with first-semester students of UNAM’s Faculty of Chemistry, as part of a course called “Science and Society”, during the 2007-1 term.
Many participatory and educational activities involving science, technology, environmental or health issues are based on the assumption that “lay” persons suffer from a “deficit” of knowledge or information on the issues under debate. An alternative approach, introduced here, is forum theatre. As the Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal describes it, forum theater begins with “a scene or a play that must necessarily show a situation of oppression that the Protagonist does not know how to fight against, and fails. The spect-actors are invited to replace this Protagonist, and act out... all possible solutions, ideas, strategies."
A group project in Fall 2007 was a short, two-act play about the Arco-British Petroleum toxic waste repository near the town of Opportunity, Montana documented in this blog. The idea was that each act would be performed several times and after two repetitions of the second act, audience members would be invited to participate by taking the place of an actor and redefining that actor's role. Performances of the second act could be continued so long as audience members are willing to participate.
See the report on the process and how the instructor plans to modify it in future classes.
This activity centers on a simple scenario that works on two levels: a) developing the ability of the activity leader(s) to coach/coax colleagues into adding new approaches in their teaching, namely, writing scenarios for problem-based learning (PBL); and b) creating a pool of scenarios that could be used in teaching (especially PBL) concerning the diverse dimensions of promoting (in a progressive way) collaborations in generating environmental knowledge and inquiry.
Activity assumes that participants already have many ideas about why people emphasize collaboration in environmental research and how the goals people have are best/better achieved. The 100-minute activity is designed to elicit and organize these ideas to serve as a backdrop for subsequent discussions.
Student projects for course on Science, Technology & Values, Erich Schienke.
In group projects, students address questions about the role certain technology/science plays in humane well-being. In the final project, students address these questions further and how they are analyzed through the various forms of justice covered, i.e. distributive justice, intergenerational justice, procedural justice, and precautionary principle. (See page 8-10 of pdf for instructions.) The central objective for this course is for students to develop, through practice, an understanding as to how their own values are constructed, individually and collectively.
In 1987, a group of nations signed an international agreement to limit the production and use of a group of chemicals suspected of harming the earth's ozone layer — known as the Montreal Protocol. This simulation activity is designed to place students in the historical context to confront the issues and experience the moment for themselves and to understand how science, ethics, economics and politics intersect in issues of the environment. A post-simulation analysis and/or class discussion amplifies the lessons by highlighting the actual history and subsequent events.
Reports of work informed or inspired by NewSSC participation
OUTREACH PLAN for Charting Growth toward Good Food, July 08, Molly Anderson
Begins with a preamble on how collaborative knowledge generation and inquiry are relevant to the NewSSC07 topic:
Example of collaborative knowledge generationapplication to indicator development
What happens when the funder isn’t interested in a collaborative, participatory approach
Use/non-use of technology designed for collaborative knowledge generation
Technology-mediated communication and collaboration in the last decade has become accepted, widespread, and much more sophisticated. This report describes the building of an online social network site for use by the participants of the 2007 NewSSC on the theme, "Collaborative generation of environmental knowledge and inquiry."
Cultivating Collaborators: Concepts and Questions Emerging Interactively From An Evolving, Interdisciplinary Workshop (P. Taylor, S. Fifield and C. Young)
The growing emphasis on collaboration in environmental planning and management and in environmental research invites consideration of how a person becomes skilled and effective in contributing to the desired outcomes of collaboration. This issue has been illuminated by a series of interaction-intensive, interdisciplinary workshops to foster collaboration among those who teach, study, and engage with the public about scientific developments and social change. Review of the workshop evaluations suggests that people are moved to develop themselves as collaborators when they see an experience or training as transformative. Four R's–respect, risk, revelation, and re-engagement–provide important conditions for interactions among researchers to be transformative.
Online Resources for Science in Society Education and Outreach
Table of Contents
The form of the resources emerging from NewSSC are varied, ranging from educational activities for high school and college classrooms, through methods of public outreach and involvement and guides to the use of technological tools in education and outreach to reports on projects informed or inspired by participation in NewSSC. Some of the resources here stand on their own, that is, readers can understand their purpose, primary audience, and possible extensions well enough to adopt and adapt them for their own situations. (After review these are posted on http://www.stv.umb.edu/orsseo.html.) Others may be most useful to readers if they seek advice and coaching from the authors. (Reciprocally, the authors may benefit from the questions and experience of others.) Still others, including the more personal reports, may require distillation and revision before they become resources for others. The character of each resource or resource-in-development is indicated by the annotations in development that accompany the links below.
Funding for the NewSSC workshops has been provided by the National Science Foundation [2004: SES-0402142;2006-8: SES-0551843].
Completed Resources
2006
Metaphor in Science: A Modular Teaching Unit, Brendon LarsonUndergraduates, Teaching unit
A series of exercises (using a variety of methods, including critical reading/text analysis, guided free-writing, small group discussion, and class discussion) designed to help undergraduate students (or others) reflect upon scientific metaphors and their implications. In particular, they should help students to better understand the following:
Evaluating perspectives within a discipline: thinking critically about values and science in ecological reconstruction, Jan Coe
Undergraduates, Teaching unit
Critical thinking skills are important for the kind of thoughtful citizens we need in order to be better stewards of our environments, including everyone and everything in them. The critical thinking skills that students use in this unit are transferable to a whole array of disciplines and issues. In the discipline of restoration ecology, the perspectives on science and values can be closely scrutinized via the arguments advanced in the literature. By critically reading and analyzing representative texts, students can form an opinion or judgment about the strength or weakness of different positions and learn how to defend a position. Synthesizing the ideas and arguments in their own words will enable them to better argue from a chosen position or perspective.
An Introduction to the Multiple Perspectives on Ecological Restoration, An exploration of human-nature relationship through the particular practice of ecological restoration, Yen-Chu Weng
Undergraduates, Teaching unit
Designed as a three-week teaching activity. From the official definition of ecological restoration to the exploration of multiple perspectives on ecological restoration, the proposed program integrates lectures, group discussion, and case study to guide students to expand the scope of ecological restoration and think about how to compromise among these diverse perspectives and propose a commonly accepted solution to a hypothetical scenario.
Resources under development
2005
Student exercise in science communication, Jinnie Garrett2006
Problem-Based Learning Activity on Stream Restoration, Peter TaylorEvaluating biodiversity metaphors: The case of barcoding
Visualizing Ecological Problems and Solutions, Using Global Warming as the Model, Aviva Rahmani, Ecological Artist
What would we do differently (to prevent global warming)?, Leonora Milán Fe, Graduate student, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Developing Participatory Theatre As A Resource For Education And Outreach, João Arriscado Nunes, Marisa Matias.
An upper-level undergraduate syllabus on Technical Decisions, that incorporated Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed," Pat Munday, Montana State.
2007
Scenarios for Teaching that Relates to Collaboration in Environmental Inquiry, Peter Taylor, Jeremy Price, Tom PowersWhat principles can inform good practice in collaborating in the generation of environmental knowledge?, Peter Taylor
Student projects for course on Science, Technology & Values, Erich Schienke.
2008
The Ozone Hole, 1987: Negotiating CFC Regulations, Douglas AllchinReports of work informed or inspired by NewSSC participation
2007
Begins with a preamble on how collaborative knowledge generation and inquiry are relevant to the NewSSC07 topic:
Continuing Collaborations Across Time and Space, Supporting the Collaboration of Environmental Knowledge and Inquiry with Technology, Jeremy Price.
2008
Rapid Problem-based learning (PBL) activity and reportson How educational and outreach units get the most effective distribution (through publications, websites, or by other means) and uptake.
Cultivating Collaborators: Concepts and Questions Emerging Interactively From An Evolving, Interdisciplinary Workshop (P. Taylor, S. Fifield and C. Young)