Popular science: overused or underused in outreach?
We define popular culture as "culture based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than an educated elite". Science is at the heart of popular culture, we know that!
Unfortunately, scientists and academics (and many teachers) are the group who know least about "pop science".
I "f-ing" love Science has over 22 million "likes" on Facebook. The TV show "Big Bang Theory" (probably passed its prime now) brought "nerdy science" into the homes of literally millions all over the world.
This session is for those of you who work with outreach, science fairs, shows and demonstrations. A chance to discuss the importance of “popular science” Should we move beyond coke and Mentos and bubble shows? Should we be doing more "serious" science?
Please join this session if you have views on the interests and knowledge of "younger" people and want to move even further away from curriculum based activities in science centres.
Session speakers
Celebrating Geek Pride:
For the past three years, Balthazar Science Center has organised activities to celebrate international Geek Pride Day. From humble beginnings to attendance that almost left us unprepared, I will share how we have used young people’s interest in science fiction films and literature, fan-cults, gaming and similar non-mainstream hobbies to bring a new audience into contact with each other and with our Center.
A "hands on" presentation of an activity that has been successfully tried and tested on young people. This will be your chance to experience the orignal game that tests your knowledge of robots, cyborgs, spacecraft and aliens from films, TV and sci-fi literature since the 1920's. Fun? Of course! Relevant? Judge for yourselves, but it encourages a lot of discusion and is quite intergenerational! Geeky? Oh yes! Sciencey? Very!
Educational Researcher & senior explainer
Looking for some new pastimes? Is your usual workout getting boring? Good news: we've come up with fun exercises to keep you busy. From DIYs to nerdy challenge, we've got several geeky ideas to get you through the season. If you're looking for inspiration, this is the occasion for brushing up on your awareness about geeky themes and check out how young Italian audiences reacted to the activities we presented to them.
We will share our experience of how people –and younger specially- interact with real scientific environments (serious science) or with “popular science", with examples from Barcelona's annual Science Festival (Festa de la ciència i la tecnologia).
Managing Director & New Technologies Manager
We will share how we put together a science picnic that attracts 330 science educators from 10 countries around the world, and 30.000 visitors. What makes it so "popular".
