Online Resources for Science-in-Society Education and Outreach

Resources

Metaphor in Science: A Modular Teaching Unit, Brendon Larson

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:
• Metaphors are common in science
• Scientific metaphors have diverse functions, both epistemic and social
• They powerfully "frame" the way we relate to an issue/phenomenon
• They can be interpreted in diverse ways, some of which may be unexpected
• These interpretations can have social implications
• 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

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.
(Associated files: Student Term Paper Rubric, Blank Checklist for Evaluating a Text, Example of Checklist for Evaluating a Text Davis & Slobodkin, Example of Checklist for Evaluating a Text: Winterhalder, Clewell & Aronson )

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

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.

Cultivating Collaborators: Concepts and Questions Emerging Interactively From An Evolving, Interdisciplinary Workshop (manuscript; 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.