Broadening adult engagement and education in science cafes: lessons from an STS — science communication boundary spanning experiment

Abstract

This essay describes and reflects on a collaboration between a university Science & Technology Studies (STS) educator and a community science cafe organizer. Our partnership was designed to address two challenges: how to encourage diversity and inclusion in science cafe audiences and how to create assessments for broader ‘science in society’ content delivered to adult cafe learners. We used focus groups to develop STS learning constructs and do community engagement needs assessments. We describe the resultant cafe series development and other outcomes of our cross-domain work in STS, science communication, and science education. We conclude with observations about the power of collaborative storytelling and make general recommendations for how practitioners and scholars can address the described challenges in ways that might ease future collaborations.