Earlier this month CPPA lecturer Gretchen Gano addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science during an annual meeting session titled “In the Eye of the Beholder: Engaging the Public in Societal Implications of Science.” Gano, who is also a research affiliate with the UMass Amherst Science, Technology and Society Initiative, used the recent World Wide Views on Biodiversity deliberations as an example of how informal science institutions can get involved in public engagement activities linked to policymaking.
The session in which Gano spoke also featured two other projects aimed at expanding informal science education and science communication practices to include the benefits of science as seen through the eyes of the public, not only the scientific community. In the first presentation, representatives from the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISEnet) described how they train educators to build real-life implications for society and public policy perspectives into science museum exhibits and programs; NISEnet collaborates on that project with Arizona State University’s Center for Nanotechnology in Society. Later, session participants learned of emerging efforts to better engage everyday people in conversations with scientists and academics about synthetic biology.
For the last year, Gano has co-directed the Massachusetts branch of World Wide Views on Biodiversity, an environmental policy project affiliated with the United Nations. Gano and two CPPA students worked throughout the summer and fall to recruit 100 participants from across Massachusetts for a day-long discussion about environmental regulations and policies. The Massachusetts event, held at the Museum of Science in Boston, was one of 34 that took place that day in 25 countries around the globe. Results from all of the sessions were then compiled into a report, which was released in October at the meeting in Hyderabad, India, of the U.N. Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity.
CPPA was able to participate in this innovative global project thanks to a university Public Service Endowment grant to the Science, Technology and Society Initiative, a CPPA-affiliated endeavor that conducts multidisciplinary research on the intersection of science and technology with today’s social, political and economic issues.
The Center for Public Policy and Administration is the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.