TY - JOUR
T1 - Developing key skills as a science communicator
T2 - Case studies of two scientist-led outreach programmes
AU - Illingworth, Samuel M.
AU - Roop, Heidi A.
PY - 2015/1/1
Y1 - 2015/1/1
N2 - Outreach by scientific researchers in school classrooms often results in widespread benefit for learners, classroom teachers and researchers. This paper presents a consideration of these benefits using two case studies in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES). In each case, different school classroom-based activities were designed by scientists, but were improved by input from educational professionals, which helped to maximize the mutual learning experiences and to ensure the quality of the content and its delivery. Each case study suggests an improvement in scientist’s working knowledge of best practices for classroom-based outreach activities, which can translate to improved practices for University-level teaching, among other tangible career-relevant benefits. Despite these benefits, these projects highlight the well-established need for improved training for researchers in effective outreach practices, increased value on programme evaluation, and the growing need for meaningful professional recognition for researchers involved in these important, and ever-growing, outreach activities.
AB - Outreach by scientific researchers in school classrooms often results in widespread benefit for learners, classroom teachers and researchers. This paper presents a consideration of these benefits using two case studies in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES). In each case, different school classroom-based activities were designed by scientists, but were improved by input from educational professionals, which helped to maximize the mutual learning experiences and to ensure the quality of the content and its delivery. Each case study suggests an improvement in scientist’s working knowledge of best practices for classroom-based outreach activities, which can translate to improved practices for University-level teaching, among other tangible career-relevant benefits. Despite these benefits, these projects highlight the well-established need for improved training for researchers in effective outreach practices, increased value on programme evaluation, and the growing need for meaningful professional recognition for researchers involved in these important, and ever-growing, outreach activities.
KW - Classroom
KW - Education
KW - Learning experience
KW - Outreach
KW - Scientific training
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84921967740&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/geosciences5010002
DO - 10.3390/geosciences5010002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84921967740
VL - 5
SP - 2
EP - 14
JO - Geosciences
JF - Geosciences
SN - 2076-3263
IS - 1
ER -