Report of the Committee on Public Understanding of Science
for the Year Ending June 30, 2005

The new committee's charge was to develop programmatic activities geared toward enhancing the public's understanding of science. As a first step, the committee reviewed current programmatic activities, and then set guidelines for new ones. The year saw great progress toward crafting a coherent set of activities that meet the program guidelines established by the committee.

I. Meeting of the Committee

The Committee on Public Understanding of Science held its inaugural meeting on November 19-20 at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, NC.

II. Activities and Business of the Committee

A. The committee considered a proposal from Sigma Xi's Board of Directors that a public relations firm might be hired to enhance the appreciation and recognition among the public of the contributions scientists make to society. The committee determined that hiring a public relations firm would not be the most cost-effective means of demystifying the important work of science and engineers. Rather, the scientific community at large would be best served if researchers themselves took on the mantle of communicating effectively with the public.

B. Based on the Board's referral of this proposition, the committee used its meeting to establish criteria for those Society activities that come under its guidance: They should harness Sigma Xi members and potential members to influence the public's understanding of and engagement with science. New programs and services should therefore provide scientists with either the skills or the opportunities to communicate to lay people about what it is that scientists do. Sigma Xi's chapters offer the perfect vehicle for those efforts.

C. To provide researchers with communications skills, the committee planned a prototype workshop that it believes could generate a series of workshops meant to impart communications skills to researchers. Chapters would partner with public information offices at their affiliated institution, or band together with other chapters and PIOs at nearby institutions to put on this kind of program.

Based on that plan, Sigma Xi developed a partnership to administer through its chapters a series of regional workshops aimed at improving the visual communication of science and engineering. The regional programs are based on Image and Meaning 2, an international workshop organized by MIT's Envisioning Science Project and held in Los Angeles in June 2005. Scientists, graphic designers, computing experts, science communicators and science-center professionals worked on problems encountered in visualizing science for various audiences.

Sigma Xi's workshops continue that hands-on investigation with support from the National Science Foundation. The first is planned for the Sigma Xi Center in March. On the success of that series, the Society can build its reputation as an administrator of similar, fundable communications workshops for scientists. The series should also build important relationships with groups outside of Sigma Xi that will participate.

D. The committee also decided that the program should look for ways through the Society's chapters for members and potential members to engage the public in two-way communication about the multiplying number of scientific issues that affect their daily lives and civic choices.

Thus the program has established a series of Science Cafés, which bring researchers and the public together in an accessible venue, putting them on equal footing for an evening discussion of current scientific research, its findings, context, caveats and implications. Successful Science Cafés have been held by chapters in Minneapolis; Newport News, Virginia; San Diego; Las Cruces, New Mexico; Moline, Iowa; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Others are being planned for Seattle; Durham, North Carolina; Los Angeles; and Philadelphia.

E. The committee decided that the program should capitalize on its most successful current efforts, the e-newsletters Science in the News and Science in the News Weekly, making them more prominent. The daily is read by more than 10,000 Sigma Xi members, journalists, educators and students, and the Weekly, offered through American Scientist Online, goes out to more than 7,000. The Society should build on that success, promoting them as widely as possible and targeting new audiences. It should reconfigure the Media Resource Service.

The program has made Science in the News available via RSS so that other Web sites can post the roundup. NOVA scienceNOW, for instance, posts the feed each day. What's more, the program has developed a new masthead for the service, and established "Science in the News" as the most prominently positioned Web element of its public understanding activities.

III. Members of the Committee

Holden Thorp, Committee Chair
Bob Lichter
Ben Patrusky
Paul Raeburn
Joann Rodgers
Jack Sommer

Staff Liaison:
Martin Baucom