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Welcome, everybody, to
Wednesday Nite at the Lab.
I'm Tom Zinnen and I work here
at the UW Madison Biotechnology
Center.
I also work for UW Extension
Cooperative Extension, and on
behalf of those folks and our
other sponsors, including the
Wisconsin Alumni Association,
Wisconsin Public Television, and
PLATO, and the Science Alliance,
thanks for coming to Wednesday
Nite at the Lab.
We do this every Wednesday
night, 50 times a year.
Tonight, I'm delighted to be
able to introduce to you a UW
Madison alum who's also a leader
in the field of informal science
learning.
His name is Dennis Schatz.
He's from Colorado, but he went
to school here in the late '60s.
He was on the Wisconsin Union
Directorate Board, so he got to
see Union South, the new Union
South, for the first time for
his visit this time.
I think he was pretty pleased
with what he's seen.
After getting a degree in
physics here at UW Madison in
1969, he went to Berkeley and
got his graduate degree.
He spent some time in Australia.
He worked at the Lawrence Hall
of Science at UC Berkeley, and
then he moved up to the Pacific
Science Center.
He is now Senior Vice President
of Education at the Pacific
Science Center, and he's on loan
to this place called the
National Science Foundation.
Some of you know that I was on
loan to the National Science
Foundation.
They sent me back.
[LAUGHTER]
They've kept Dennis
and we hope for a long time, but
I think you get three years.
Two years.
Okay.
He's here in Madison in part
because of the science denial
conference that was held on
Monday and Tuesday morning.
It's going to be filed up by the
science de-Amazon conference
next year, and we're delighted
to have him here on campus
Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday.
Yes, that was a geographical
river pun that didn't go
anywhere.
So, tonight Dennis is going to
talk to us about several things,
including a program that he
started about five years ago
called Portal to the Public.
Because so many of you are
involved so much and in so many
ways in lifelong learning and
science and especially here at
the university, I think he's got
a particularly great topic for
us to hear about where he's
going with this and what the
future of informal science
learning and getting scientists
to connect to and talk with and
listen to, learners of all ages,
especially at his place, the
Pacific Science Center, and
things we might learn by doing
that here at UW Madison and at
other locations around
Wisconsin.
So, please join me in welcoming
Dennis Schatz to Wednesday Nite
at the Lab.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Tom.
It's great to be here.
It is wonderful to come back to
Madison.
I enjoyed my years here.
Although, it was that tumultuous
time, 1965-1969.
I was vice president of the
student Union, and I can
remember at least one time when
you couldn't even get into the
student Union while I was here.
And I have to admit, I was on
the committee associated with
the Union that designed the
Union South that just got torn
down.
So it's interesting to see the
second iteration of Union South,
and it is a delightful place.
The hotel which I'm staying at
is just magnificent.
The food's been good.
It's been really nice to be over
there.
It's been nice to be here in
springtime too when it's nice.
What I want to talk about
primarily is about our program
called Portal to the Public
which connects research
scientists, now when I say
research scientist of course
everybody immediately thinks of
scientists at the university,
especially here or at NOAA or
something of that sort, and we
actually, when we say scientist,
it's a short term for
science-based professionals.
So there's lot of people out
there that have a technical
background.
Technicians in labs, people who
are in the health industry but
aren't necessarily physicians,
they all have a science
background and know a great
deal.
So we think about getting people
connected to public audiences.
I'm from an informal science
education institution, a big
science center.
As a matter of fact, if you
haven't been there before, this
is the Pacific Science Center in
Seattle.
It's the big white building.
It was the US Science Pavilion
during the 1962 World's Fair.
And, actually, three days ago we
celebrated our 50th anniversary.
The fair opened October 22,
1962.
Actually, that's not our
celebration.
That's when the US Science
Pavilion opened.
The Pacific Science Center is a
private nonprofit opened on
October 23rd, the day after the
fair closed.
A great urban myth, we got
35,000 people through the
building a day during the fair.
When we opened up the next day,
the claim is one person came.
I'm not sure why anybody would
come at all since the fair had
closed and I think everybody
assumed that the building was
probably closed too.
But I've never figured out
whether we could decide whether
that's true or not.
But it's a great building, great
legacy that the federal
government really provided for
the Pacific Science Center and
for the greater northwest.
Of course, it always looks like
this just in case you weren't
sure what it was like in
Seattle.
[LAUGHTER]
In case you'd like to come and
visit no matter what.
And so I have to admit that in
order to talk about the
importance of having scientists
engage with public audiences, I
need to go back and tell a
little bit about why I got
engaged.
I think Tom might have said, so
I was an astrophysicist.
I went to the astronomy
department here.
Became a solar astrophysicist.
I do like working during the day
rather than at night, so that's
lots of light.
It's really great.
The sun gives out lots of
energy.
You need a little telescope.
But I went to graduate school at
UC Berkeley, and as I, if you're
with the university usually you
have to start as a teaching
assistant.
You don't get to do all that
great research.
And I was totally frustrated by,
one, how little or how difficult
it was for students to
understand basic astronomy
content, the basic science.
And even more so, I was
frustrated by how poorly the
university professors taught
science.
And so I was really, I did two
years worth of graduate school,
got essentially everything but
my dissertation, and then
decided I was going to be the
best community college
instructor in astronomy and
physics that you could possibly
imagine.
I had figured out how to do it.
And this next slide illustrates
where I really, my big ah-ha
related to science education.
So if you're not familiar with
astronomy, this is called the
Hertzsprung Russell diagram.
So temperature on the bottom.
Brightness along the left side.
In order to make it really
challenging for most people to
understand this, temperature
goes from high temperatures on
the left to low temperatures on
the right.
But it does go from low light,
low brightness up to high
brightness on the vertical axis.
So in case you want to try and
challenge people it's a good way
to do it.
And we use this to talk about,
and we plot stars on them.
So we plot their temperature and
their brightness.
We use it to talk about how
stars evolve.
Again, you don't really have to
know all this.
But I went out, I was the best
community college teacher you
can image.
I was concise, cogent, humorous,
all those important things.
And so in order to explain how
stars evolve, you talk about
stars begin as this huge ball of
gas, and that means they're very
big but they're low
in temperature.
So they're on the top right.
So it starts on the top right,
but as it coalesces, gravity
pulls it together into a star,
it gets smaller so it gets
fainter but also gets hotter by
compression.
And so it moves down and to the
left.
Ultimately, it spends most of
its time, all those dots up
there are stars called the main
sequence.
Our sun is there now.
Been there for four billion
years or so.
But sooner or later it runs out
of hydrogen in the center, and
it has to figure out how to get
more fuel, and so what it does,
I won't go into the details, it
starts to expand into a red
giant.
So now it gets bigger.
So it's brighter but it cools
off.
So what's it do?
It goes back up to the top, up
where the guy saying keep on
trucking or that sun says keep
on trucking, becomes a red giant
for a while, and ultimately it
comes back down to the lower
left where it's a white dwarf
star.
The sun or a neutron star or
something like that.
So we talk about stars moving on
the HR diagram.
They start up the top right,
they go down to the middle, they
go back up to the top, and come
down to the bottom.
Very simple and we personify
stars.
It just amazes me.
We talk about them being born.
They have a midlife crisis and
turn into a red giant.
You'd think they were alive.
And I have to admit, it was
really a good, I had it down.
I knew people understood what I
was saying.
So until about three days later,
this student came up to me and
said, you know, Mr. Schatz, I
went out last night.
I didn't see any stars come
down, go back up, come back
down.
[LAUGHTER]
And I knew that something was
wrong with my presentation.
This really put me on the road
to trying to understand as a
research scientist, or as a
scientist, how can I be a better
communicator of science?
So this is a lifelong effort.
Astronomy, we do it to people
all the time.
We have all these things we get
know.
I often call it your expert
blind spot.
Like, I understand it, why don't
you understand it?
It's so simple.
So we often do things like this
is a galaxy, hundred billion
stars.
This is what it looks like
face-on, whatever face-on
exactly means, and if you go
around 90 degrees it looks like
this.
So just think about people going
what's a galaxy?
What's a hundred billion stars?
Trying to understand what this
all means.
I'll skip that one.
This is my favorite.
Phases of the moon.
Sun comes in from the right
side, hits the moon, and because
of its angle relative to the
Earth you get different phases.
What I think most people look at
this and say is, gee, I didn't
realize the Earth had 16 moons.
[LAUGHTER]
It really is confusing, and yet
we expect people to understand
this, and of course I'm so
used to it.
We get expert blind spot, makes
it challenging.
The challenge we run into is
because this is a traditional
view on education.
My favorite.
I taught stripe how to whistle.
What a second, I don't hear him
whistling.
I said I taught him; I didn't
say he learned it.
[LAUGHTER]
And what we end up focusing on
is I teach all this stuff, and
of course I teach it once.
Learning isn't one-stop
shopping.
It's not like I just get
information and I learn it all.
You have to do it over and over
again.
But we don't focus on what
people learn, we focus on what
we taught them.
And we need to shift what we're
doing.
This is a big part of our
approach on thinking about
scientists' involvement with
public audiences.
How do we get them thinking
about the learning that's going
on rather than I'm conveying
information, I'm teaching, I
taught it to them, they should
understand it.
So this is a lot of the
philosophy that's behind here.
The other thing that I want to
point out, and this is all kind
of background for the Portal to
the Public, is we spend a lot of
money, as you probably know, on
formal education, especially
K-12 education but even
university education.
And being from a science center,
and informal science education
institution as we say, we like
to point out that people don't
spend a whole lot of time in
formal education.
So this is a nice diagram going
from preschool up to death, up
past retirement.
The yellow there is the number
of hours or percentage of time
in a day, in a 16-hour day, we
eliminate the sleep time,
16-hour day, how much time is
spent in formal education.
And of course, a lot of that is
in K-12, and then it gets a
little bit less at higher
education and then even later as
you go into careers and so on in
terms of formal education.
We did a nice calculation.
If you live to be 80 years old,
that's not unreasonable these
days, you spend 3% of your awake
hours in K-12 classroom.
Yet, we think that's where
education is supposed to really
happen, the bulk of it.
You go off to college and
university and so on, but really
the big focus is getting people
through K-12 education.
There's a big blue sea out there
of time, and you're all part of
that in a way.
You're here in the evening,
lifelong learning as Tom said.
It's that lifelong learning, and
we talk about lifelong, life
wide means it just doesn't
happen in school.
It happens at evening lectures.
It happens at home.
It happens had science centers.
It's life wide and life deep
because people tend to get
excited about something.
So not only might you learn
about biology in school, you
learn about botany in a science
center, and then you go and get
into gardening, and all of the
sudden you have this deep
knowledge, that's why it's life
deep, deep knowledge about a
science-based area.
And so it's lifelong, life wide,
life deep.
That's what we're really after.
So how do we use this time
outside of school to really get
people engaged in science,
engineering, that type of thing.
So that's really the focus of,
first of all, that's really the
purpose of informal science
education institutions is to
really use that deep blue sea,
as we often call it.
So, with that as a background, I
want to talk about Portal to the
Public and what we've learned
from this.
It's got a simple premise.
Funded by the National Science
Foundation, we have three museum
partners and one research
partner.
And the goal with this was to
develop, as it says, a scalable,
proven program format or model
of face-to-face interactions
between scientists, and I'll go
back and say science-based
professionals, and public
audiences at informal science
education institutions, like
science centers.
We're the big kahuna.
We have a million visitors a
year.
Very large, 200,000 square feet.
The north museum, next one,
35,000 people visit a year.
It's about four times the size
of this auditorium.
Not very big.
In Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
And then Explora, which has
maybe 300,000 people a year, in
Albuquerque.
So different geographic areas,
as well as size of institution.
And the goal was really to prove
this could work in many
different locations.
We come from a really science
rich area.
We have the other U-dub.
Of course, we say U-dub versus
UW.
So we've got big universities.
We've got research centers, a
lot of biotech, National Cancer
Institute Center, and so on.
A lot of the other ones don't
have the same.
We wanted to prove it could work
in many different locations.
So that's the premise.
How do we bring this
face-to-face interaction, and
I'll talk a lot about why we
think this interaction is
important.
So just to give you a sense of
what it's like before we talk
about some of the elements of
it.
At the Pacific Science Center we
have various different programs.
One of the most significant is
what we call our research
weekends, polar science weekend,
life science research weekend,
the marine exploration weekend.
This is from our polar science
weekend.
The person in the middle is the
director of the Polar Science
Center at the University of
Washington, big NSF research
center.
And the goal was to bring 50 to
100 scientists to this science
center.
We have a big, open display
area.
You can think of it as a science
fair except it's not being done
by high school students.
It's being done by researchers
showing off their wares.
In this case, they're showing of
a lot of the equipment they use
to study the polar regions.
But our goal is to have the kind
of conversation that's going on
here.
Not only are they looking at
materials, but it's really a
time for personal interaction.
People ask questions, understand
more about what they're doing.
Here's another example.
We happen to have some ponds
that are part of our science
center.
So here's a marine scientist
training one of our young
visitors how to throw a sampling
net to capture, you can see the
little fish in the ponds.
They understand what scientists
do to go out sampling of animals
out in the ocean or out on a
river, whatever it may be.
And, actually, the sub-theme of
the marine science weekend was
not all scientists wear lab
coats.
This proves it.
I'm not sure they all wear
Hawaiian shirts.
[LAUGHTER]
It puts a human face
on scientists.
So this is now from our life
sciences research weekend.
On the lower left is a very high
tech mannequin.
You can take its blood pressure.
You can stop its heart, start
its heart, lots of things you
can do.
But this is, again, an
interaction.
Kids can feel the pulse of the
mannequin, but they were then
also doing their own.
It gives us interaction between
the scientist and the person.
And really brings us, again, a
human face on science.
This is a scientist from the
University of Washington who
studies tsunamis.
Again, sometimes there are
hands-on activities Sometimes he
has a computer simulation that
he's showing, but he also has a
hands-on device there with a
vortex device.
Great role model.
When you think about all the
things that you want to
accomplish to encourage people
to go into a stem field, you
want to have that, who do you
connect with the most?
The people you get to know.
So the goal is to have people so
they get to know people.
These are two graduate students
in geology.
They're using therapeutic Silly
Putty in the yellow and the
green up there.
I never knew before in my life
that Silly Putty came in
different viscosities.
But it's used for, if you're
building up your hand muscle you
start with the stuff that's easy
to squeeze, and then you go to
the more.
So they use it to talk about
glacier flow.
So nice hands-on, very visual
activity, and then you can see
the computer.
So they then translated that
back to their research in
modeling what they were doing.
So you make this nice transition
between hands-on, concrete
activity to a more abstract
computer activity.
Great role model.
I really liked it because there
were always so many young girls
around these graduate students.
This is a NOAA scientist.
So not all from the University
of Washington.
There are other scientists out
there.
This is a NOAA orca specialist.
She studies orca DNA.
She wants to know which baby
goes with which adult and which
adult goes with which other
adult and so on.
So she had an activity that
dealt with orca relationships.
So, the question is, how do you
make something like this
successful?
And I have to admit, I've got to
step back and appreciate what
Tom has done and so many other
people.
When I came here in 2006 and I
was back here today to see the
-- center and all of the
outreach programming
that happens here at my
alma mater.
Kind of a button popper, as a
friend of mine would say, it's
great to see this.
A lot of this is already
happening.
I have to admit, that the kind
of engagement with the public
audiences here are really
wonderful, but we were starting
new.
We didn't really have a lot of
engagement at Pacific Science
Center with scientists, and we
brought in a group of people and
said so what's it take to do
that?
If you want to have scientists
come, you can just come on over,
but if we want to have the most
effective programming, we want
to make sure that scientists are
doing the kind of education
experience, learning experience,
that meets our standards.
We have pretty high standards
when it comes to interacting
with the public.
So these are some of the things
that were suggested by our group
of experts that came.
Actually, Tom was not part of
the first meeting, but he was
part of the second meeting.
So the big thing was to really
make sure that scientists
understood or kind of got out in
front some of what they
considered their weaknesses,
their strengths, their fears.
Many scientists come, and
especially if you're in a public
institution like ours, we get
5,000 people a day through.
Families moving around, it's
like I've got to work with all
those people?
Wait a second, how do I do that?
Certainly, communication skills.
I went through as a research
scientists, nobody taught me how
to, when I became a TA, I'll
never forget I'm a new TA, UC
Berkeley, what am I supposed to
do?
Go talk to the other TAs.
So and so was a TA last year, go
talk to them.
So I went and talked to Fred
Rife was his name.
Okay, Fred, tell me what am I
supposed to do?
Oh, you do as little as
possible.
[LAUGHTER]
So what do you do?
Well, you go to the recitation
session and discussion session,
and you ask if they have any
questions and you answer their
questions.
I'm kind of going, well, so...
That was my introduction and my
training.
I'm sure that's not unusual.
And then, for us, it's really
understanding public audiences.
You come into a facility, you've
got grandmother with two little
kids, sometimes you have school
groups or you have a group of
all fifth graders.
Other times you've got senior
citizens that are coming.
So our training involves
thinking about what are you
going to do for different kinds
of people.
I don't have time to go into all
those things, but I'll talk
about them a little bit.
So, what is the focus?
I'm going to give you a sample
of some of the things we do with
our scientists.
Most important thing, I think
this is good for any kind of
communication, we talk a lot
about how people learn.
There's a lot of research that's
been done on the basic
understanding of how people
learn.
So we have that.
Much of what you can do with
people it what motivates them.
You need to get to know your
visitor.
It's one thing to say I want you
to understand, pick climate
change, pick astronomy, but what
determines a lot of what people
understand what they learn, what
they keep, and whether they
stand talking to you or leave
you is their motivation.
So how do we know what their
motivation is and build off of
that?
Certainly, working with groups
of different ages is really
important.
We think it's important to have
a mediating activity.
It's not just a matter of my
lecturing, which I'm doing right
now, I can have a PowerPoint and
be lecturing out there, but to
really have something that
engages the person into a
conversation and illustrates the
research that you're doing.
So that's a critical part of it.
One of the things that doesn't
happen enough in education in
general is number seven.
We need to have time to reflect,
to self-evaluate, get feedback,
to practice.
Often it's, here's the
materials, go do this with the
public.
Well, wait a second, not only do
I not know what I'm doing but I
need to practice.
I haven't figured out why we
think, back to this whole
learning thing, if I tell you
something you should just know
it.
I taught it to you so that's
sufficient.
I think about, you don't go and
play tennis by getting on the
court and hitting the ball
around a little bit and then
being a perfect tennis player.
What do you have to do?
You have to practice.
So if you're going to be a good
communicator, then you need to
figure out some ways to
practice.
And you'd like to start
practicing, not with the 5,000
people that are coming through
the science center.
First of all, you start with
your friends.
So you start with other
scientists because they're in
the same boat you are, and then
you do it with some of our staff
who are really there to be a
coach.
And then you get to go out and
try it with the public.
And you really need to do it
three or four times to feel that
you're comfortable.
So that's a really important
part of it.
And I didn't get to all of them,
but it gives you a sense of it.
So we decided it was really
critical, actually what's also
totally fascinating is that our
first group, although they told
us, they said you'll never get
anybody to do this, scientists
aren't going to come do this.
Because what we wanted was a
pretty good commitment.
We wanted 20 hours, coming to
have professional development of
science communication so that
they would meet our standards,
and then a commitment of 20
hours of coming to the science
center and doing activities with
the public.
That's 40 hours out of a year.
This is a year long, and then we
hope everybody will re-up for
another 20 hours of interaction
with the public which generally
is true.
So people don't have time.
They don't think it's a
priority.
It is challenging.
You've got to find those 40
hours.
We've had no problem, and one
reason we've had no problem is
we developed a program, instead
of saying please, please come
and you don't really have to do
too much, we turned it into an
honor.
We developed the Science
Communication Fellows Program.
So you have to apply.
You have to say you really want
to do this.
We'll give you 20 hours of
professional development at no
cost.
You come and give us 20 hours of
work.
We filled up all of our courses,
if you want to call them
courses.
We now have over 250 science
communication fellows.
They get a certificate.
For many graduate students, this
is actually a nice thing to put
on their CV.
It shows that they've actually
been through a training program,
are a good science communicator.
And the kinds of things that,
going back to that list, that we
do, one of the things that's
really important is the
workshops have all got to be
interactive in nature.
We can't just talk to people.
You teach the way you were
taught so that you have to have
them be doing things so that
they get an idea the kinds of
things you want them to do out
on the floor.
So this gives you an example.
We've got things with black
boxes.
This picture on the right is a
little thing called a --, I
think that's how you pronounce
it.
That bounces around and we do
some basic science.
One thing that we want to do is
to remind scientist of why are
they a scientist.
I still haven't figured this out
because, to a large extent,
people come to, they teach
science like it's a body of
knowledge.
Those astronomy professors I
had, it's like this is how stars
are formed.
I did that.
Here's how stars are formed.
Here's what galaxies are.
But if you ask them what excites
them about science, it's the
sense of discovering.
It's going out and doing
experimentation and exploring
and making discoveries.
So we really want to remind them
at the very beginning that
that's an important part of it.
Then we have this whole thing,
which I'm going to do one
activity that relates to that,
is how people learn.
What are the things we need to
know about how people learn so
that we can use that
information?
And then the important thing,
again, this is a chance to
reflect, plan, and practice.
And I have to point out, of
course, this is all based upon
the research that's been done
around how people learn.
So there's great books, these
are all from the National
Research Council, this is how
people learn in general.
Ready, Set, SCIENCE!
is about learning in schools and
Surrounded by Science is
learning in informal
environments.
We use this within our, a lot of
scientists, where's the
evidence?
It's an evidence-based
profession so we have evidence
to show them this is why you
don't just lecture to people.
So I want to spend some time so
you get a sense of what we've
done and why this is important
to do an activity called
building a common vision, or I
like to call it getting beyond
your expert blind spot.
And to do this, you need to pair
up.
You need to find a person next
to you.
It's a little challenging in
this room, but if some
individual is here, so if people
could get up and move around.
And one of you is going to be a
learner, and one of you is going
to be a scientist conveying
information.
So pair up, decided who's going
to be the scientist, who's going
to be the learner, and I'm going
to come around and give you
information on how to do that.
Okay?
So pair up, get next to each
other.
If the three of you want to work
together, you can do that.
Tap your microphone.
[TAPPING]
There you go.
Was it not working the whole
time?
No, it just went out.
Did I really change what I
was saying.
This goes to the learner.
All these go to the learner?
Yeah, just one per learner.
One per learner.
Yeah, no color coding.
Okay, we're now handing out a
folder to the learner.
One per learner.
Just go like this and I'll know
I need to hit my...
It's a signal.
Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
I need to get out here and get
some other materials, and then
I'll let you ask a question.
Yes.
I'm a retired math and
science teacher, and my big
thing was learning styles.
Does you're program address all
the different learning styles?
The auditory, physical, graphic?
We don't do the six learning
styles in that sense.
We do talk about different ways
people learn, but we didn't
break it down into, I can't
remember his name.
We need one more learner here.
Two learners.
So now the learners are all set
up.
So if the learner opens their
folder, and I have to admit, the
learner needs a pen or a pencil.
So hopefully you have them.
If you don't have one, ask
somebody if they have one that
you can borrow.
So if you're the learner, open
up your folder.
There should be a blank piece of
paper inside, and you need to
open it and put the folder,
here, yes.
We'll do the example.
You should hold it between you
and the scientist so they can't
see what you're doing.
Secret agent man.
That's right.
Like Battleship.
You're going to be drawing
something on this blank piece of
paper.
So that's your job.
You're learning how to draw.
Let's put it that way.
You're learning how to draw
something, but the important
thing is that the scientist
can't see what you're doing.
Okay?
Any questions?
I don't want to get ahead of
everybody.
Now, the scientist has another
folder.
Inside here, which I can't show
you, is a drawing.
So when you get this, you open
it up, make sure that your
learner can't see it but you can
see it, and your challenge,
there you go, one per scientist.
Let me give one.
So your goal is to sit here and
say draw this.
Now you can't go like that.
That's not fair.
You can't draw it.
You can only use words.
You can't see what the learner
is doing.
And there is no conversation
between the two of you.
It's a one-way conversation.
You just talk.
Now, if you want to put in the
context, this is like being in
that 300-person lecture that you
took at the university.
One-way communication.
So we want to see how good you
are at conveying information,
and we'll relate that to how
people learn.
Okay, any questions?
Am I clear enough?
I'll give you one here in a
second.
Okay, so as soon as you get it,
if you have one you can start
talking to your learner and tell
him how to draw this item.
Do I need a pen?
You do need a pen, and I just
happen to have one.
Thank you.
Just remember that I need to
get it back.
I'm not clear what I am to
do.
She's going to tell you what
to do.
She's going to tell you what
to draw on here.
You have to draw what she tells
you to draw.
Okay.
[LIVELY CHATTER]
Okay, let's see how
you did here.
Oh, that's pretty impressive.
So what did you do to get that?
I told him to draw a light
bulb.
If you're done, you can look
at what the person drew and talk
about what made it easy, what
made it hard.
I said draw a light bulb
without the base.
Okay, light bulb.
That's pretty good.
People don't usually do, it'll
be interesting to see.
You can see they're working on
it down there.
That's not too bad either.
Or compare theirs.
All right, so how'd you get this
over here?
That one started with a
triangle.
I thought that was the center.
All right.
That's why I want to talk about
the challenges here in a second.
Okay, well I hate to stop
everybody's fun, but we are
supposed to be done shortly.
Oh, yes, thank you.
I forgot.
Okay, if I can get everybody's
attention back up here.
All right, I don't want you
having so much fun.
[LAUGHTER]
Okay, we do this activity, I'm
going to talk a little bit more
about it, we actually do
three rounds.
We have three different
versions.
This is, again, lecture style.
One-way communication.
This is that traditional way, I
just tell them all the stuff.
The second one, the scientist
can see what the learner is
doing, but it's still one-way
communication.
And then the last time, it
really is full communication.
And of course, people at the end
talk about how important it is
to be able to say, wait, what
did you mean by this?
Did you really want me to do
this?
This whole idea of a discussion.
This is why we think
face-to-face interaction is
important.
So it gets across the whole idea
of how people learn and how
valuable conversation is.
If you look at learning that
goes on, if you want to get
people from some sort of
conception they have of topic,
whatever it is, it's by getting
them to talk about it,
especially if you talk about it
in a group so you have kind of a
socialization going on.
This is a key element to
learning is having
conversations, doing some
discussion about what you're
doing.
And then the scientist who might
not be totally enamored with
this face-to-face but I'm
willing to come because my
friend came, by the time you
finish this it's like yeah,
face-to-face is the only way to
go because if you think about
what you're doing when you talk
to people, here you're making
your partner draw a physical
thing, and you can say you got
it or you didn't get it, but
when you're trying to teach a
scientific concept, what you're
doing is drawing an image in
their head.
Your goal is for them to have
the same image in their head as
you have in your head.
And the only way you can figure
that out is by having a
conversation with them.
Ask them questions.
I grew up in the planetarium
field a lot.
A big planetarium, big show, you
go, oh, isn't that wonderful?
Well, you have no idea what
anybody learned out there.
I actually got very involved
with participatory planetariums
where you have a discussion
between the audience and the
presenter.
That's the way that you know
learning is going on.
So that's absolutely critical.
What were some of the things
that made it easier, and what
are some of the things that made
it harder?
Yeah?
I don't know what the middle
thing is.
Oh, you don't know what it
is.
I'll have to sit here and see if
I can find, here's the yellow
one.
So here's what they had.
I don't know how many did that,
but a lot of people talk about a
backwards C with a bent flagpole
in the middle.
It's hard compared to something
like this where you say
triangle.
People know what a triangle is.
So what this brings out, again,
on how people learn, even though
I don't like being interrupted,
when discussion is going on it's
that key element of learning
that's going on.
When you say triangle, people
know what that is.
So a key element of building on
how people learn is using
knowledge, or using vocabulary--
Okay everybody.
Shh.
[LAUGHTER]
Hit them on the head.
I'm the teacher staring down at
these two people over here
talking.
[LAUGHTER]
Sorry, if we had more time, I'd
love to let the
conversation go on.
So it's this idea of using known
vocabulary.
That's great until you hit
something like this and it's
like, okay, what am I supposed
to do with that?
This one actually, relatively
speaking, is typically much
easier than, let's see if I can
find the one, no that's not it.
Who has a red one?
I need a red one.
Yes, there we go.
Thank you.
Well, it depends how you look at
it.
Does it go this way or this way?
This one's easier?
Yeah.
That's interesting.
So why is this one easier?
[INAUDIBLE]
Pyramid?
I know pyramid.
Now what did you do for this?
Light bulb.
Now here's another tool that the
scientist thinks about.
And, again, the goal is to build
up a toolkit of things to use,
then to go out and use them,
practice them and so on.
So light bulb, anybody else use
something different?
Parking meter.
There we go.
I should have a little tooth in
here and then it would be time's
up.
Parking meter.
Casper the ghost.
Now, what happens when you do
this?
Nose.
A platypus bill or a nose.
Oh, a platypus bill.
A nose.
A lot of people say a thumb.
We did the workshop this
afternoon for graduate students
and it typically was this
direction and it was, as they
said, that thing that hangs in
the back of your mouth.
[LAUGHTER]
That worked pretty
well actually.
I was amazed at the number of
people that did that and that's
another one.
So what do we call those?
Analogies.
So the use of analogies, this is
probably the most powerful tool
that we use in teaching in
general, not just for scientists
engaged with public audiences.
We use analogies.
We try and relate it to
something they will know.
Well, how do you know what they
will know?
How do you know that they knew
what you used?
What do you have to do?
Have a discussion with them.
You have to ask them questions
because then you can get
feedback to tell you whether
they understood it or not.
So when you do this for the
third time, you really get an
understanding of what it takes
to get across information.
With that one we got really
good on the shapes.
I oriented them left and right
correctly but not up and down
correctly.
Yep, that's a problem.
And we actually, sometimes
people put their paper this way
when they really want it this
way.
Sometimes they do, they get
little images over on one side
because nobody says this covers
the whole page.
If you're just telling me to
draw something, does it cover
the whole page?
So you get into whole issues of
how precise you need to be, you
need to be thinking about what
information you need to give,
but more important than anything
else is you need that feedback
because you can never be totally
precise.
You can never be on top of all
the issues for every person.
So the conversation is really
important.
That's just an example of the
kinds of things that are really
important and build off how
people learn.
So this is a good example.
When I say wave, what do you
think of when I say wave?
All right, the wave.
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't think about that.
Seattle Seahawks wave and the
wave, the royal wave.
So that's fair enough.
Of course, maybe if you're a
physicist you might think of a
sine wave.
We actually have one drawing, I
don't know if anybody had it out
there that has kind of a nice
sine wave.
It's a lower amplitude sine wave
but a sine wave.
So if you know you're talking to
a physicist, you're in great
shape.
Of course, there's the wave, and
then there's another kind of
wave.
If you lived in California,
you'd probably think of this
wave and hope for that kind of
wave all the time.
Given the time we're at, this is
a wonderful book called Fishless
Fish.
It's really great to illustrate
this too.
I'm going to skip that right
now.
So this is the goal.
This is the challenge we have.
I sit here and go, oh, I'm a
flower, and everybody else
thinks I'm, whoever knows what
they think it is.
And the goal, of course, and
it's important to realize, this
is the other challenge with
people saying I want to make
sure they understand it, and
when they don't understand it,
you get all frustrated.
Well, people don't learn that
way.
You learn over time.
You understand a little bit
better.
You still have some
misconceptions about something.
So it takes a number of
experiences, not just
necessarily the same experience
with the same person.
It's not you have to just hit
them again and again.
They have to go away, think
about it.
They have to have another
experience someplace else, and
then, of course, the ideal thing
is that you've been able to make
it so that everybody understands
it.
Now, another activity we do, and
we're not going to do because we
don't have enough time, so
they've developed this toolkit
of learning about how people
learn, but now they have to
facilitate that with visitors of
the science center.
Again, that's that school group
over here, the grandparent with
a grandchild, a family, two
adults and two kids, a
12-year-old and a 4-year-old.
That's an interesting group to
try and have a conversation
with.
You won't ever have a
conversation with all of them,
but often you want to have
something that you can give to a
4-year-old while you're having a
conversation with the adult, an
activity for the, so you really
do think about these things.
So we have things called talk to
your neighbor, and it's a role
playing activity where people
pair up and they pull out of a
paper bag, basically, different
audiences.
And one of them has to role play
the twin 4-year-olds or the
grocery clerk or the retired
politician.
That's an interesting group to
try and talk to.
[LAUGHTER]
Whatever it is.
But it gives them a chance to
try that practice, again, within
a comfortable environment.
They don't have to go out and do
it, but they get some practice,
time to reflect, some more time
to practice.
They switch roles.
They do it a few times.
All important.
All built upon what we know
about how people learn.
And, finally, I have to admit,
what's really been great from
our point of view, and I'm going
to leave it at this and then
answer questions, is we now have
this cadre of people who come to
our life science research
weekend, to our polar science
weekend, 200 people, 250 people
that are trained, now we can
have them involved with other
things or if we need people who
have the same skills of
communication.
So we run three science cafes
around the Puget Sound area.
I hadn't thought about it, this
happens here every Wednesday
night.
We do three nights a month.
So we're almost there.
We just have to have a fourth
site.
Then we'd be almost equal to it.
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
Well, I have to go to Tacoma
for one of them, Seattle for
another, and Redmond for
another.
Right on the way.
[LAUGHTER]
So we have science cafes, and
I have to admit, I have this
fantasy in life, I do call it
a fantasy, it's a dream but it's
really a fantasy, and that is
some day science will be as
pervasive as sports.
It's kind of like all right.
You can imagine after school
science, intramural science, a
little pick-up science activity
at the local playground.
And I know we've made it when
you have to rush home for Monday
night science.
So we have Friday night science.
I don't know if that, we don't
get millions of people at a
time.
Science cafes are becoming very
popular, so at least we're
starting a trend.
The other thing we've been able
to do is to go from having these
big research weekends, we now
have our scientist spotlight
where 8 to 10 of these
scientists come down every first
Saturday of the month and they
set up in our exhibit area and
they just interact with the
public for the day.
We now have repeat visitors
because they know they can come.
It's like coming to Wednesday
Nite at the Lab.
They know they can come down on
the first Saturday of every
month, and they'll have some
interesting, it's typically
different.
It's not like they know, oh,
it's always going to be an
astronomer or it's always going
to be a geneticist or whatever.
They'll be a whole range.
So that's been real nice.
And of course we keep on trying
to figure out how to expand,
and, finally, we have gotten the
university to buy into this and
have a husky weekend.
It's the University of
Washington Huskies.
We want to call it a husky
weekend, but they decided on
Paws on Science to build off the
dogs, as they say.
And now we're trying, so how
many people can we get to do
this.
We've been working really hard
on getting the Washington State
University to come and have a
Washington State University
weekend.
They're over in eastern
Washington so it's a lot more of
an effort, but they're the
Washington State Cougars.
So instead of a husky we'd have
a cougar weekend.
And I have to admit, I said that
to a group of people and they
just started laughing and
laughing.
[LAUGHTER]
It shows what I know
about pop culture.
Washington State Cougars are
Washington State.
It means nothing else.
But it could be interesting to
have a whole different clientele
for a cougar weekend.
[LAUGHTER]
Where do we sign up?
Yeah, right.
And so we've actually gone and
we've worked with NASA
activities and so on.
So the goal is really to build
this, Monday night science is
the vision.
How do we take this group of
scientists that we're working
with, be able to convey current
research?
You guys do this really well
here.
Most science centers like us, we
have one PhD on our staff.
It's not me.
One PhD and we're not science
specialists.
We're science communication
specialists.
So it's being able to bring in
those science communicators is
really important.
So working with MDITR, which I
don't remember, it's a chemistry
or material science and
technology center at the
university with several
partners.
So building off of what we're
doing, the goal, of course,
would be to have activities
every weekend if we could do it
and many places.
So, again, I come here and I'm
just excited about the wealth of
possibilities that you have to
do something like this.
And it's been a great adventure
for us.
And thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]