Journal of Science Policy & Governance
|
Volume 20, Issue 02 | May 16, 2022
|
Policy Memo: For the Public Good: Incorporating Civic Science into Undergraduate STEM Education
Christian H. Ross, Samantha Jo Fried
Tufts University, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Medford, MA Corresponding author: [email protected] |
Keywords: civic; civic science; STEM education; science communication; democracy
Executive Summary
Science and technology are ubiquitous aspects of modern life, and their importance reaches far beyond the laboratory and into the public square. Those with STEM training have a distinct opportunity and responsibility as civic participants to apply their training to promote the public good by engaging with the civic dimensions of science and technology. However, civic engagement is difficult to do well, and current undergraduate STEM education does not adequately train students in these critical skills. To improve STEM graduates’ understanding of science and technology in broader societal contexts, enhance their science communication skills, and increase their civic engagement and competency, universities should adopt a civic science approach to STEM education. Drawing on an example from the Science and Technology and Society co-major program at Tufts University, we recommend universities and STEM departments incorporate training in civic science into STEM education to prepare STEM graduates to engage more fully with the technical and political dimensions of democratic life.
-Read the full article through download.-
Background header image courtesy of ESAL
Christian H. Ross is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Civic Science in the Tisch College of Civic Life studying the roles of expertise, responsibility, and public engagement in understanding the rightful place of science in democracy. Previously, he was a Science, Technology & Society Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He earned his doctorate in 2021 from Arizona State University in biology, synthesizing interdisciplinary expertise across the life sciences, science and technology studies (STS), and science policy. He also holds a B.S. in medicinal biochemistry and M.S. in biology from Arizona State University
Samantha Jo Fried is the program manager of the Civic Studies and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) programs at Tufts University. Samantha holds a Ph.D. in STS from Virginia Tech. While in graduate school, she was student body president, and was part of the Remote Sensing Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program (IGEP). Educated in two different worlds that share little in terms of jargon, theories, or methodologies, she learned to think about the connections between these spaces in terms of shared values. Her research seeks to reconfigure critical theory and action-based coalition-building around a commitment to civic science.
Samantha Jo Fried is the program manager of the Civic Studies and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) programs at Tufts University. Samantha holds a Ph.D. in STS from Virginia Tech. While in graduate school, she was student body president, and was part of the Remote Sensing Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program (IGEP). Educated in two different worlds that share little in terms of jargon, theories, or methodologies, she learned to think about the connections between these spaces in terms of shared values. Her research seeks to reconfigure critical theory and action-based coalition-building around a commitment to civic science.
References
- Allen, Greg. 2020. “Florida Governor Defends Firing Of Top Data Scientist.” NPR. May 20, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859741245/florida-governor-defends-firing-of-top-data-scientist
- Besley, John C., Sang Hwa Oh, and Matthew Nisbet. 2012 "Predicting scientists’ participation in public life." Public Understanding of Science 22, no. 8: 971-987. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662512459315
- Besley, John C., Anthony Dudo, Shupei Yuan, and Frank Lawrence. "Understanding scientists’ willingness to engage." Science Communication 40, no. 5: 559-590. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018786561
- Biden, Joseph R. 2020. Twitter post. Oct 28, 2020, 8:15PM. https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1321606423495823361
- Bäckstrand, K. 2003. “Civic science for sustainability: reframing the role of experts, policy-makers and citizens in environmental governance.” Global Environmental Politics 3,
- Bloudoff-Indelicato Mollie. 2012. “Physicist Elected to Congress Calls for More Scientists-Statesmen.” Nature News. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.11839
- Bourla, Albert. 2021. “Continuing to Follow the Science: An Open Letter from Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla.” Pfizer https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/continuing_to_follow_the_science_an_open_letter_from_pfizer_chairman_and_ceo_dr_albert_bourla
- Brownell, Sara E., Jordan V. Price, and Lawrence Steinman. 2013. "Science communication to the general public: why we need to teach undergraduate and graduate students this skill as part of their formal scientific training." Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education 12, no. 1: E6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc3852879/
- Bush, Vannevar. 1945. Science: The Endless Frontier. The National Science Foundation. https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/EndlessFrontier_w.pdf
- Callon, Michel. 1984. "Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay." The Sociological Review 32, no. 1_suppl: 196-233. no.4: 24-41. https://doi.org/10.1162/152638003322757916
- Christopherson, Elizabeth Good, Dietram A. Scheufele, and Brooke Smith. 2018. “The civic science imperative.” Stanford Social Innovation Review. https://doi.org/10.48558/6k46-1c68
- Christopherson, Elizabeth Good, Emily L. Howell, Dietram A. Scheufele, Kasisomayajula Viswanath, and Norris P. West. 2021. “How Science Philanthropy Can Build Equity.” Stanford Social Innovation Review.
- https://doi.org/10.48558/p4g8-qm77.
- Coons, Christopher. 2017. “Scientist’s can't’ be silent.” Science 357, no. 6350:431-431. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao4665
- Crow, Michael, Robert Frodeman, David Guston, Carl Mitcham, and Daniel Sarewitz. 2013. The Rightful Place of Science: Politics. Vol. 1. Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes.
- Day, Jennifer Cheeseman and Anthony Martinez. 2021. “STEM Majors Earned More Than Other STEM Workers.” United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html
- Dietz, Thomas. 2013."Bringing values and deliberation to science communication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. Supplement 3: 14081-14087. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212740110
- Dosemagen, S. 2020. “Exploring the Roots: The Evolution of Civic and Community Science.” Medium. https://medium.com/@sdosemagen/exploring-the-roots-the-evolution-of-civic-and-community-science-80dd899335cb
- Douglas, Heather. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-free Ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Facher, Lev. 2021. “Biden pledged to ‘follow the science.’ But experts say he’s sometimes fallen short.” STAT News. Sep. 1, 2021. https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/01/biden-pledged-follow-the-science-but-hes-fallen-short/Gibbons, Michael. 1999. "Science's new social contract with society." Nature 402, no. 6761: C81-C84. https://doi.org/10.1038/35011576
- Fortun, Kim, and Mike Fortun. 2005. “Scientific imaginaries and ethical plateaus in contemporary US toxicology.” American Anthropologist 107, no. 1: 43-54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3567671
- Garlick, Jonathan. A., and Peter Levine. 2016. “Where civics meets science: building science for the public good through civic science.” Oral Diseases 23, no. 6: 692-696. https://doi.org/10.1111/odi.12534
- Grundmann, Reiner. 2018. "The rightful place of expertise." Social Epistemology 32, no. 6 : 372-386. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2018.1546347
- Guston, David H. 2000. "Retiring the social contract for science." Issues in Science and Technology 16, no. 4 (2000): 32-36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43314013
- Hornsey, Matthew J. 2020. "Why facts are not enough: Understanding and managing the motivated rejection of science." Current Directions in Psychological Science 29, no. 6: 583-591. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420969364
- Huang, Pien. 2021. “New CDC isolation guidelines raise concerns among health experts.” NPR. Dec. 28, 2021. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/28/1068632200/cdc-covid-guidelines-testing
- Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social Order. Routledge.
- Lane, Neal. 1996. “Science and the American Dream: Healthy or History.” In Speech to the February 1996 meeting of the AAAS. Notices of the American Mathematical Society. https://www.ams.org/notices/199606/comm-lane.pdf.
- Latour, Bruno. 1993 [1991]. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Harvard University Press.
- Lemire, Jonathan Aamer Madhani, Will Weissert And Ellen Knickmeyer. 2020. “Trump spurns science on climate: ‘Don’t think science knows’. “ AP News. Sep. 14, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-elections-joe-biden-campaigns-bd152cd786b58e45c61bebf2457f9930
- Levy, Brett L.M., Alandeom W. Oliveira, and Cornelia B. Harris. 2021. "The potential of “civic science education”: Theory, research, practice, and uncertainties." Science Education 105, no. 6: 1053-1075. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21678
- Mak, Aaron. 2021. “In This House, We Believe.” Slate. May 12, 2021. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/yard-sign-love-is-love-post-trump-sales.html
- March for Science. 2019. “Unite Behind the Science.” March for Science. https://marchforscience.org/
- Mervins, Jeffrey. 2018. “Meet the scientists running to transform Congress in 2018.” Science Insider. 22 Feb. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat3783
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). 2018. Graduate STEM education for the 21st century. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25038
- Nature Editors. 2021. “Biden has assembled a stellar science team — now they must pull together.”Nature 590, 7-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00184-y
- Nelson, Alondra, and William Kearney. 2021 “Science and Technology Now Sit in the Center of Every Policy and Social Issue.” Issues in Science and Technology 38, no. 1: 26–29. https://issues.org/science-technology-policy-social-issue-alondra-nelson-interview/
- Oreskes, Naomi. 2021. Why trust science?. Princeton University Press.
- Polanyi, Michael. 1964.”The Republic of Science.” Minerva 1 no. 1: 54-73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41821550
- Popovich, Nadja, Livia Albeck-Ripka, and Kendra Pierre-Louis. 2020. “The Trump Administration Is Reversing Nearly 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.” The New York Times. Oct. 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html
- Ravetz, Jerry. 1988. "A new social contract for science." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 8, no. 1: 20-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/027046768800800107
- Ross, Ashley D., Rhonda Struminger, Jeffrey Winking, and Kathryn R. Wedemeyer-Strombel. 2018. "Science as a public good: Findings from a survey of March for Science participants." Science Communication 40, no. 2: 228-245. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018758076
- The Royal Society. 2006. Science communication: Survey of factors affecting science communication by scientists and engineers. The Royal Society. https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/file/b28517751_Full%20report.pdf
- Sarewitz, Daniel. 2009. "The rightful place of science." Issues in Science and Technology 25, no. 4: 89-94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43314922
- Schmandt, Juergen. 1998. “Civic science.” Science Communication, 20, no. 1, 62-69. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547098020001008.
- Seethaler, Sherry, John H. Evans, Cathy Gere, and Ramya M. Rajagopalan. 2019. "Science, values, and science communication: Competencies for pushing beyond the deficit model." Science Communication 41, no. 3: 378-388. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019847484
- Science News Staff. 2021. “Biden seeks big increases for science budgets.” Science News. May 28, 2021. https://www.science.org/content/article/biden-seeks-big-increases-science-budgets
- Simis, Molly J., Haley Madden, Michael A. Cacciatore, and Sara K. Yeo. 2016. "The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication?." Public Understanding of Science 25, no. 4 : 400-414. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662516629749
- Thompson, Alex. “Biden’s top science adviser bullied and demeaned subordinates, according to White House investigation.” Politico. Feb. 7, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/07/eric-lander-white-house-investigation-00006077
- Tormos-Aponte, Fernando, Scott Frickel, and John Parker. 2020. “Scientists Are Becoming More Politically Engaged.” Scientific American. Nov. 25, 2020. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-are-becoming-more-politically-engaged/
- Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). 2021. How Is President Biden Doing on Science and Democracy?.” Union of Concerned Scientists. Apr. 28, 2021. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/biden-science-tracker
- Waldman, Scott. 2019. “Trump officials deleting mentions of ‘climate change' from U.S. Geological Survey press releases.” Science Insider. Jul. 8, 2019. https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-officials-deleting-mentions-climate-change-us-geological-survey-press-releases
- Walker, Greg. B., and Steven E. Daniels. 2004. “Dialogue and deliberation in environmental conflict: enacting civic science.” In Environmental Communication Yearbook, edited by Susan L. Senecah. Routledge, 135-152.
- Wylie, Sara Ann, Kirk Jalbert, Shannon Dosemagen, and Matt Ratto. 2014. "Institutions for civic technoscience: How critical making is transforming environmental research." The Information Society 30, no. 2: 116-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2014.875783
- Wynne, Brian. 2006. "Public engagement as a means of restoring public trust in science–hitting the notes, but missing the music?." Public Health Genomics 9, no. 3: 211-220. https://doi.org/10.1159/000092659
DISCLAIMER: The findings and conclusions published herein are solely attributed to the author and not necessarily endorsed or adopted by the Journal of Science Policy and Governance. Articles are distributed in compliance with copyright and trademark agreements.
ISSN 2372-2193
ISSN 2372-2193