Youth Citizen Science Journalism as a Means to Develop Competent Outsiders

• In Event: Science Education for the Competent Outsider: What We Already Know and Do

Abstract

The Science Literacy through Science Journalism (SciJourn) project began with the recognition that practices of professional science journalists relate to skills that scientifically literate adults could use fifteen years after they graduate from high school (Polman, Newman, Farrar, & Saul, in press; Polman, et al., 2010). In its third year, SciJourn is a distributed activity system of 25 school sites, an informal science institution, and a university, organized around the production of citizen science news stories for a print regional science newspaper and online publication. We aim to foster learning that is not defined by "usual school practices", and to foster engagement that results in identity shifts. In this presentation, I describe how science journalists themselves work as competent outsiders, and explore how engaging students in educative science journalism in a distributed activity system that includes schools and community-based programs has the potential to develop a generation of more "competent outsiders" to science.

Theoretical Framework

I utilize a sociocultural perspective (Wertsch, 1998) and practice theory to interpret identity and human action in communities of practice (Nasir & Hand, 2008; Polman & Miller, 2010; Wortham, 2006). I make use of Wenger's (1998) notion of "boundary objects" and "brokering" to analyze how particular artifacts and actors introduce ideas from one community of practice into another.

Methods and Data Sources

Our team utilized content analysis to develop a characterization of science journalism practices, and I will use interpretive case studies to understand the participation and development of individuals within and beyond the SciJourn learning environment. The data sources include: readaloud-thinkaloud interviews of scientists and science journalists while reading science news; results of a science literacy assessment taken by novice, experts, and participants in our 25-site intervention; observational field notes from our intervention; over 900 science news articles (first drafts, revisions, and final) and edits by an outside science editor; and 25 interviews of participating students on their experience.

Results

Our content analysis found that expert science journalists: search effectively for and recognize relevant, credible science information sources; write articles based on multiple, credible, attributed sources; communicate information that is factually accurate; contextualize scientific information, discoveries and technologies; describe how scientific information is relevant to themselves and their readers.

The case study research showed that SciJourn participants could make progress at all the above elements of science journalism practice, through scaffolded brokering of hybrid practices. Furthermore, learners who drafted articles about personally relevant topics, received feedback from an external editor, and revised for publication in an authentic venue experienced both cognitive shifts as evidenced in their discourse, and shifts in their trajectories of identification in relation to science that could have lasting effects.

Significance

Educators have long sought to reframe science literacy as preparing citizens to participate in democratic debates and policymaking related to science and technology, and to make personal decisions informed by current science (e.g., Aikenhead, 2006; Roberts, 2007). Through involvement in citizen science journalism, learners may develop as "competent outsiders" better prepared for their futures.

Author

• Joseph L. Polman, University of Colorado - Boulder