Communicating science

Abstract

Despite a growing understanding of the importance of inquiry learning and hands-on experiences in the classroom, science education generally operates within defined and somewhat old-fashioned curricula. There is much evidence that members of the general public, who are the products of this education, generally demonstrate an indifference to science and a lack of awareness of personal relevance of past or present research. Science education still has strong overtones of the deficit model, which has been rejected by science communication theorists and many practitioners for decades. The deficit model is fuelled by regular surveys of the public undertaken in Europe, the US and Australia which demonstrate a lack of knowledge of many simple scientific facts. In turn these surveys stimulate calls for improvement in general science literacy, which is seen to be deficient in most Western countries. The principles of science communication place the needs of the 'audience' as the primary consideration, not the content of the scientific 'message'. This chapter examines how this might happen in the classroom, while retaining the requirement for formal science education to address the needs of a wide group of students which includes future scientists as well as those who will not continue with scientific study.