Author: Menelaos Sotiriou – Science View, Greece
How can we leverage students understanding on STEM concepts and at the same time guarantee their cheerful engagement so to communicate scientific notions to the public? How can we transform school to a science communication hub that connects the scientific world and the local community? Learning Science Through Theater (LSTT) initiative strongly promotes the above principles by creatively merging STEM with Art in a dialogic/inquiry process. Theater is used as a means of deliberation, a vehicle around which the whole team of stakeholders builds relationships that favor the communication and transfer of scientific knowledge.
Students build their understanding on scientific concepts applying and developing knowledge from their curriculum and become acquainted with the concept of communicating science creatively. Develop skills in communicating science to audiences in their local communities. They manage to develop creative skills in a spirit of cooperation and teamwork (create a ‘cognitive object’ such as script, scenography, costumes, music or even a video composition). This process, engages students in a highly motivating environment where they learn to recognize, analyze and imagine alternative explanations and models and communicate a scientific argument or issue in a creative and alternative way.
Public Engagement with Science as well as Science Communication in terms of informal science education refers to activities, events, or interactions characterized by mutual learning – not one-way transmission from “experts” to publics – among people of varied backgrounds, scientific expertise, and life experiences who articulate and discuss their perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and values.
With 5 years of implementation background and a framework strongly aligned to the most recent EU demands for shaping the scientific literate citizens of the future, LSTT achieved a remarkable engagement of the target groups set and important results in the field of Science Communication by involving 3000 students, 250 teachers, 6000 parents and 1000 stakeholders.
The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.
Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation