Public awareness of science

Public awareness of science (PAwS), also public understanding of science (PUS), is a term relating to the attitudes, behaviours, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to scientific knowledge and organisation.

It is a comparatively new approach to the task of promoting science, technology and innovation among the public and provides an integrated and results-oriented view, integrating under a single framework a series of other fields, such as:

• science communication in the mass media, internet, radio and television programmes;
• science museums, aquaria, planetaria, zoological parks, botanical gardens, etc.;
• fixed and mobile science exhibits;
• science festivals
• science fairs in schools and social groups;
• science education for adults;
• consumer education;
• public tours of research and development (R&D) parks, manufacturing companies, etc.

How to raise public awareness and public understanding of science and technology, and how the public feels and knows about science in general, and specific subjects, such as genetic engineering, bioethics, etc., are important lines of research in this area.

Contents 1 The Bodmer Report 2 Project examples 3 Further reading 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

The Bodmer Report

The publication of the Royal Society's' report The Public Understanding of Science (or Bodmer Report) in 1985 is widely held to be the birth of the Public Understanding of Science movement in Britain.^[1]. You can download a PDF from the Royal Society website^[2]. The report led to the foundation of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science and a cultural change in the attitude of scientists to outreach activities.^[3]

Project examples

Government- and private-led campaigns and events, such as Dana Foundation's "Brain Awareness Week," are becoming a strong focus of programmes which try to promote public awareness of science.

The UK PAWS Foundation dramatically went as far as establishing a Drama Fund with the BBC in 1994. The purpose was to encourage and support the creation of new drama for television, drawing on the world of science and technology.^[4]

The Vega Science Trust was set up in 1994 to promote science through the media of television and the internet with the aim of giving scientists a platform from which to communicate to the general public.

The Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science chair at The University of Oxford was established in 1995 for the ethologist Richard Dawkins^[5] by an endowment from Charles Simonyi. Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy has held the chair since Dawkins' retirement in 2008.^[6]

Further reading

• Gregory, Jane & Miller, Steve (1998); Science in Public: Communication, Culture & Credibility (Cambridge, Massachusetts USA: Perseus Publishing)
• Vega Science Trust - Over 90 free-view science programmes including lectures, discussions, interviews with eminent scientists, careers programmes, workshops and teaching resources.
• The Royal Academy of Science's 2006 "Factors affecting science communication: a survey of scientists and engineers" report.
• Specialist journal Public Understanding of Science

See also

• Science outreach
• Science festival
• Science journalism
• Science museum
• This Week in Science popular science podcast developed around improving public awareness in science
• British Association for the Advancement of Science
• Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science

External links

• Open Directory:Scientific communication.
• Science communication, syndicated content.
• History of Science Communication and the Public
• Descarter Prizes and other prizes for science communication in European Union.
• Science.gov.
• Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.
• Graduate Diploma in Science Communication.
• SciNotes.
• An e-Guide to science communication.
• Science and Communication: An Author/Editor/User's Perspective on the Transition from Paper to Electronic Publishing.
• science communication and research office SCRO
• Graphic Science.

References