Not Just Learning

when you think about science retail, I guess this is a bit philosophical here, but it does get me thinking about, in terms of what it is of science, so to go back to this conversation I keep on trying to circle around, is that there's another element. When I do engagement with science, I've tried to cultivate engagement activities in which I explore the part of science that's about curiosity and about the unknown. And how the process, the nature of science, that's what I have found to be a thrilling source of engagement is to get people to consider what science is. The mystery of science. And there is a philosophical difference between that and other presentations of science as being like the chemical structure of something or the definition of something or a picture of something from science. It's a different type of what science is, but it gets to, it's very philosophical, but what is science and there are a lot of different ways to consider that and it's not just about the different disciplines, but it's also about what's the process of science. Not just what are the results or the discoveries, the outcomes of science research, but what is it in itself,

my background is pretty clear cut in the world of commerce and selling materials and I know in some areas in both academia and in art, selling and sales has a negative connotation. In many cases it's deserved, but in my mind if one of the goals is to sell science, maybe more figuratively than literally, but to create better engagement or more curiosity. Whether it's getting people to enroll in college programs or recognize the value in science or squash all this crazy no climate change discussion, ff people could just spell isotope, if I thought that would make a difference in the world I'd support it. But selling isn't bad, it's changing behavior, it's making an argument in a nonargumentative way of the value proposition of one thing versus another.

I have come to this place around informal learning, where the authority in informal learning, is the learner. They choose what to learn, when, how, it's all on them. And what we do, is provide opportunities. As you're describing Jemima, those planets, and whatever quick thing they said, and the seconds of exposure, it's what somebody makes of that, and connects that to their own interests, and their own learning ability. In a parade, it's crazy fast. And maybe the best thing, is it sparks some curiosity, and connects it to an aspiration, or something like that, which is cool. In the con thing, it was really interesting, because there was a lot of that quick opportunities. And then, there was this more in-depth stuff. But those environments are generally, and I think of exhibitions particularly, which is mostly my background, exhibitions are really crappy teachers. When they try to teach, they generally fail. However, there are incredible opportunities in which people can learn, but they learn on their own terms. And so what we provide, is an opportunity for people to connect to on their own terms. And I think, that's a big deal for this whole situated engagement thing. It's thinking about what opportunities would provide, for people to make their own hooks to things, and make sense out of their own lives by having some exposure to some new opportunities. But how it gets absorbed, and what gets made of it, is up to the individual, or the crowd that you're placing the opportunity in front of, or with.

An example of how this stuff fit in ways that I didn't expect, so there's a table there that's just NASA stickers and Europa Mission stickers, and I took a photo of this because I'm like, pardon my French, "Bullshit." A table of stickers and logos I thought was super underwhelming, and I was 100% wrong about that because I went back like two hours later and that table was ransacked. And this idea that science fandom could be in here and that merch could be this essential part of it, or schwag, was really driven home for me by that experience.

if there is an element of confusion and understanding of process, people will shut down and they won't internalize it as a fault in themselves, versus a fault in the learning technique. And so there is an implicit message about, you just can't understand this, that is delivered when there's a concept that's not well explained. So I would say to find other ways or deeper ways that are quick to connect the concepts together, I think would make the whole experience more cohesive.

I guess another risk that I see potentially in a display of science that shows science as being about what is known about the world is that it doesn't communicate the sense of discovery. So I guess that's a completely different concern, but that science is a lot about trying to figure things out, right? So that if you're presenting science as, "Well, this is what we already know about the world. Are you with us?" And people are like, "Well, I didn't know that." They may feel like, "Well, no, I'm not with you because I didn't already know that." So I think that one possibility with the parade would be to do a little bit more to engage people in the idea that there's discovery involved and they're being invited to discover. And

There's just a risk that if the messaging was about what science is or the examples of science were not coming through, there's a risk that people might come away thinking, "Science is hard, science isn't for me. I don't get it. I feel excluded." So I would say that's a risk of this kind of quick engagement around science. I do not think that that happened with this group at all, but I think that's a risk of this kind of engagement. The intention of course is to reach out and invite people to be excited about science and to think, "This is something I can do." So I think that that is what was happening, but the risk is that the other message would be taken.

Everyone's saying it is a fast paced transient environment, so I don't think there's a lot of opportunity for deep learning in something like this. I think that the opportunities available here are kind of, let's start the conversation, let's show you who we are and what's possible, and then hopefully down the road we'll have a chance for a longer conversation,

Something else that our participation in DragonCon really enables, and that is not only the teaching of science content, but just the value of science and the love of science and the presence of science throughout the city. And so I think being at DragonCon gives us that stage to integrate science into the culture of Atlanta. And so because of the challenges that Jeff described, it's really difficult to teach science and have them come away learning something, but there are other opportunities that this kind of event presents to put science on the stage, within the context of our city, so that people can see that, "Yeah, it's here, and there are opportunities for me to learn. Maybe I'm not going to learn today, but I'm going to get excited about science learning opportunities in the city."

We talked at some length, about the difficulty of communicating content in a parade, but what you can do is communicate presence. Or communicate, and this actually is a reflection back on the St. Petersburg Pride Parade, the sense of, "This is what a scientist looks like." Science is about doing, it's also about being, and being present at an event that already says something. But it's not probably a great venue for communicating content, but definitely lighting that spark for sure. And it is, the Dragon Con parade, was an incredibly diverse, and a very enthusiastic audience. It just totally blew me away.