Home | Login | Register

• Science, Education, & Engagement
• Acknowledgments/Grants
• Contact ICAM

Home

ICAM’s Science, Education, and Engagement (SEE) Initiatives

ICAM’s Science, Education and Engagement (SEE) Initiative

In the past, there has been a tendency to view scientific research (from fundamental to applied), education (undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral), and engagement (outreach including industrial and philanthropic interactions, K-12 and informal education, and policy / public affairs) as separate activities, practiced one-at-a-time and lodged in different organizational and administrative units. Yet as citizen-scientists, we know these activities are closely interwoven; we want our lives to be less fragmented, and our contributions to making the world a better place maximized.We can do this by integrating our science, education, and engagement activities, and learning how to do this effectively is a major goal for ICAM and its branch members as they pursue a number of SEE initiatives.

ICAM has adopted an umbrella theme, Exploring our Emergent Universe/Developing an Emergent Perspective, for its SEE initiatives. Because people learn in different ways, and different audiences can be reached in different settings, it is using an integrated multi-pronged approach in these initiatives to communicate with its intended audience, learners of all ages beyond 12 or so.

ICAM’s SEE initiatives are described below while further information and links are given in the headers on the left hand side of this page. 

Our Emergent Universe

http://www.emergentuniverse.org, is a novel Initiative in science communication. It is a completely virtual, online, interactive science center that uses a combination of artistic, humanistic, and scientific elements to engage and inspire a critically important outreach audience: educated, internet-savvy 17 – 35 year olds with interests spanning a broad range of disciplines. It is targeting the worldʼs future leaders: writers, entrepreneurs, scientists, politicians, policy makers, etc., in order to increase societal awareness and to motivate policy decision in support of key scientific research and development.

Emergentuniverse.org is unique in that it uses the concept of emergence to communicate science and technology, an approach that naturally highlights the critical role played by scientific research from a broad range of disciplines in solving the real challenges faced by our society. It has been extremely successful at engaging visitors and communicating science; In less than 5 months, with virtually no advertising, it has attracted over 10,000 visits from nearly 100 different countries to its first two wings :Emergence and Amyloids and Alzheimerʼs Disease.

At this time, ICAM is seeking additional financial support for the development of a third major wing, dedicated to superconductivity and superconducting technologies, that is scheduled to open in 2011 in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity.

A Global Partnership Promoting Science Education Through Engagement (GSEE)

Background GSEE is being founded as a global consortium of institutions and individuals who work to help learners of all ages develop an informed perspective on science and its role in meeting global challenges. Its partners—educational institutions, scientific societies, science museums, citizen-science organizations, corporations, and individuals—will use http://Learn with GSEE.org as a major forum to share information about their best practice in engagement, education, communication, and program assessment, and to serve as a seed bed for new joint SEE initiatives. It is our hope and expectation that this new emergent institution will enhance activities at participating institutions and develop new collective initiatives in such a way that the whole becomes considerably greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Strategy The initial GSEE strategy is to bring together leaders of strong institution-based, scientist-based, teacher-based, and web-based SEE efforts in a series of Founding Summits to create a global forum for the regular exchange of ideas and information and to devise ways for its global partners to work together to create new approaches and to propagate their ideas beyond their normal venues and boundaries.
In establishing programs, the GSEE partners will act locally, but connect globally. They seek through a major web presence, topical exploratory workshops, fellowships, annual meetings, and seed projects to build an effective GSEE network that will enable them to:

*enhance substantially the public engagement by research scientists—from individual efforts to involvement in teacher, web, museum, and institution-based science educational programs

*develop innovative ways to share, integrate, improve, and propagate their best SEE materials and make these available globally for use in schools, universities, the informal science education community, and for learners of all ages on the web

GSEE Founding Summits in 2012 and 2013 are being designed to:

1  Inform participants about existing “best practice” in science education outside the classroom at their respective institutions.

2  Share information on the ways in which participants measure the effectiveness of their SEE programs.

3  Accelerate the development of http://Learn with GSEE.org, as a web site that makes information on these best practices and assessment protocols readily available—e.g. initiating a global “Zagat Guide” on resources in informal science education for teachers, scientists, and students.

4  Form regional consortia to pursue promising initiatives in science education.

5  Develop synergistic regional and global SEE initiatives.

6  Create materials for http://Learn with GSEE.org that are addressed to varied audiences and explore the possibility of developing an umbrella concept or concepts for these

7  Attract significant new philanthropic support for SEE initiatives

The GSEE/ Chicago Founding Summit [May 10-12,2012] will be limited to ~ 60 participants and have these added goals:

*Develop a GSEE Road Map that proposes an initial scale-a Stage 1-for GSEE and suggests subsequent paths forward that will enable GSEE to make a major impact during the next decade

*Identify a founding campus

*Create GSEE/Illinois, an Illinois regional SEE consortium involving the University of Chicago, Argonne, UIC, Northwestern, the Field Museum, FermiLab, and UIUC

*Establish working groups on specific potential synergistic GSEE initiatives, umbrella concepts, and measures of their adoption and success

*Produce an engagement manifesto that emphasizes the importance to professionals at every stage in their careers of becoming engaged in education about science, and the pressing need for their institutions, national academies,  and major philanthropic foundations to encourage, recognize, and reward that engagement

Future Summits Subsequent GSEE Founding Summits will identify connections and develop synergies betweeen US, European, and ASian SEE programs, form national and regional consortia, and initiate new GSEE collaborative activities.  Kyoto University will be the lead sponsor of a GSEE Founding Summitt, GSEE/Asia, that will be held in November 2013 in Kyoto.  A third summit, GSEE/Europe, is planned for 2013 or 2014.

Founding Partners Building on a base of ICAM branches, with ICAM playing a catalytic role, GSEE is in the process of expanding the group of Founding Partners listed below to include other major universities, honorary and professional societies, leading science museums, media leaders, corporations, citizen-science organizations, and other “grassroots” groups.

• The Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Physical Society
• Argonne National Laborary
• Field Museum
• IntelBioMat
• Kyoto University
• LabRats Science Education Program
• National Academy of Sciences
• National High Magnetic Field Laboratory/FSU
• Paris ICAM Consortium [Triangle de Paris]
• Rutgers University
• Sabanci University (Istanbul)
• Santa Fe Institute
• UK Consortium (Cambridge University, the Scottish University Physics Alliance)
• University of Buenos Aires
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, San Diego
• University of Chicago
• University of Colorado, Boulder
• University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Utrecht
• Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center
• Zhejiang University (ZJU), Hangzhou

SEE initiatives that are ongoing at GSEE’s current US partners include:
ICAM’s web-based interactive science centers (http://emergentuniverse.org and http://iLearnScience.org) and its scientist/teacher collaborative (EmergentLabs): the SEE activities of the University of Chicago and the National Academy of Sciences; SFI’s Learn@SFI and Emergence Exhibits; the SEE activities of the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center; the American Physical Society; the AAAS; the Field Museum; and the Society of Amateur Scientists (SAS; the LabRats Science Education Program; and Colorado’s online interactive simulations for teaching science (http://phet.colorado.edu). Significant other SEE initiatives are being carried out by candidate partners. These include universities, science museums and media centers, national laboratories, major corporations, the Society for Science and the Public, the Strategic Education Research Partnership, Quarknet, and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

While each of these initiatives has proceeded pretty much independently of the other, and while each can stand on its own, their impact will be considerably greater if connected to each other and integrated through new joint activities and partnerships. Moreover, since engagement in science education knows no national boundaries, GSEE can connect US initiatives to those being carried out by the Royal Society, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other learned societies, and by ICAM branches that include the Paris Scientific Consortium, Sabanci University, the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Cambridge, the University of Kyoto, the University of Utrecht, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, and many others.

Superconductivity at 100 In 2011 many institutions are organizing a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity in Leiden in 1911, in part because this provides them with a unique opportunity to engage the public on a central topic in quantum matter. Because Superconductivity at 100 offers GSEE a test-bed for developing a topical SEE network, GSEE has joined with ICAM in encouraging its partners to integrate, improve, and propagate their best SEE materials on superconductivity and post links to these on the ICAM web site, http://icam-i2cam.org/index.php/outreach/SC100.

Inception and early activities (2009-2011)

January, 2009  Exploratory sessions on public engagement that were held during the ICAM Annual Meeting at the University of Cambridge from Jan.11-13, 2009 included talks by Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College, James Bradburne, Director of the Palazzo Strozzi (Firenze) David MacKay, author of “Sustainable energy—without the Hot Air”, and subsequently Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Department of Energy and Climate Change, Suzi Tucker, the Founding Director of ICAM’s online virtual science center, http:// emergentuniverse.org, Julien Bobroff of the Universite de Paris, Clifford Johnson of USC, and a round table discussion led by Janet Morgan Balfour, Chairman of the UK Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board.

The speakers and participants in these sessions were unanimous in emphasizing the importance of finding new ways to support and expand the public engagement of research scientists. They strongly encouraged ICAM to take the lead in establishing a global partnership to help learners of all ages develop an informed perspective on science through science, education, and engagement (SEE) programs.

Spring 2009  The first GSEE Founding Partner meeting took place on April 22, 2009, when GSEE Founding Partners were invited by Jeremy Sabloff, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, and Ira Harkavy, Associate Vice President and Director, Netter Center for Community Partnerships, to participate in a planning meeting to discuss a University of Pennsylvania (Penn) initiative that will build on their decade-long work with inner–city schools in West Philadelphia.  The attendees were Vlad Dobrosavljevic (FSU), Larry Gladney (American Physical Society and Penn), David Pines (ICAM), William Harris (Kidspac), Ivan Smalyukh (U Colorado, Boulder), and Penn faculty members, Cory Bowman, Associate Director of the Netter Center, Dennis DeTurck, Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the College, Frank Johnston, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, and Richard Schultz, Professor of Biology and Dean for Natural Sciences.

The group discussed ways of incorporating GSEE thinking and Penn’s GSEE partnership into a new Penn proposal to the NSF that will use West Philadelphia as an experimental site for developing a replicable approach that advances research and learning, and shows how improved science education not only benefits the undergraduate participants and their target audience in the school system, but also improves and enriches the process of scientific discovery. All concerned viewed the meeting as highly successful. The meeting agenda, summary, and powerpoints used by the participants, plus those sent in advance by the ICAM/GSEE partners (Cambridge, Kyoto, Paris, Sabanci) who could not attend, will be posted on ICAM/GSEE web sites.

October, 2009  ICAM’s interactive online science museum, http://emergentuniverse.org, was launched on Oct.1, 2009.  It is not your typical science site. Its Director and Chief Exhibit Designer, Dr. Suzi Tucker, has created a graphically designed interactive site that uses a mix of art and science—as well as discussions of complex problems facing our society—to draw in visitors with a broad range of interests, as it seeks to be bring the excitement and mysteries of emergent phenomena to the millennial generation, ages 15-30. A visitor to the site can wander from one exhibit to another, as one does in a science museum, exploring a given topic in greater or lesser depth. Its initial offerings comprise about two dozen exhibits giving examples of emergent behavior under two general headings: “Emergence Unlocking the Universe” and “Renegade Proteins and the Fibril Connection.” A variety of approaches designed to appeal to young adults has been employed, from a manga, or Japanese-style comic, to animation, music, video games, and self-guided activities.  The dark-toned palate and edgy graphics were chosen after careful research on what appeals to the target group.

January, 2010  One of the highlights of the 2010 Annual Meeting of ICAM was a session in which members of GSEE described SEE initiatives at their home institutions. It featured reports on science education and engagement efforts at three GSEE members, Colorado (Boulder), FSU, and the University of Cambridge, those planned for Kyoto University, and a progress report on ICAM’s major engagement initiative, http://emergentuniverse.org, by former Davis Chemistry Professor, Suzi Tucker, who is its leader and chief designer.

April, 2011  At a break-out session devoted to Engagement during the Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences,  David Pines described our plans for GSEE in the course of his invited talk on “Becoming Engaged: Initiatives that can Change Science Education”, and invited NAS members to participate actively in its work. 

July, 2011  Following a series of discussions at the Aspen Center for Physics that ICAM’s SEE Working Group Co-Chairs, Steve Berry and David Pines, had with Provost Thomas Rosenbaum of the University of Chicago, Chicago has offered to host the first of the GSEE Founding Workshops on its campus in May, 2012.

GSEE Board of Advisors Advice on GSEE programs is being provided by a Board of Advisors that represents its founding and potential partners and the public at large. Its founding members include:

• Ali Alpar (Sabanci University)
• Janet and Robert Balfour of Burleigh (Brucefield, RSE)
• May Berenbaum (UIUC)
• R.Stephen Berry (Chicago)
• Julien Bobroff (Orsay)
• James Bradburne (Palazzo Strozzi)
• Shawn Carlson (LabRats Science Education Program)
• Paul Chaikin (NYU)
• Piers Coleman (Rutgers and ICAM)
• Daniel Cox (U C Davis)
• E. Dan Dahlberg (Minnesota)
• Vlad Dobrosavljevic (NHMFL/FSU)
• Laura Greene (UIUC)
• William Harris (KidsPac)
• Ira Harkavy (Pennsylvania)
• Dudley Herschbach [Harvard]
• Sailing He (Zhejiang University)
• Clifford Johnson (USC)
• Timothy Knowles,Chicago
• Peter Littlewood (Argonne,)
• Andrew MacKenzie (St. Andrews)
• David MacKay (Cambridge)
• Cristiane de Morais-Smith (Utrecht)
• Alexandra Navrotsky (U C Davis)
• Kazuo Nishimura (Kyoto University)
• Jose Onuchic, UCSD
• David Pines (ICAM and UC Davis)
• Michael Plautz (Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center)
• Martin Rees(Cambridge)
• Thomas F.Rosenbaum, Chicago
• Jeremy Sabloff (Santa Fe Institute)
• Ivan Smalyukh (Colorado)

EmergentLabs

, http://emergentlab.org - Patterned after the NSF-supported QuarkNet, and an earlier ICAM program that focused on superconductivity (https://sites.google.com/site/edusupernet/), this teacher/scientist collaborative effort to develop educational modules on emergent behavior for high school students will be seeking major funding during the coming year from the NSF.

Great Explanations

http://www.icam-i2cam.org/index.php/outreach/great_explanations will contain both commissioned video explanations and accessible public lectures on emergent phenomena by leading scientists

Links to Courses/Outreach Activities at ICAM Branches

As information is received from ICAM branches, a library of SEE programs at ICAM branches will be posted on the ICAM web site, as will be a library of resources for outreach/education on Emergence, Energy, and the Environment that is under development. Here is the current list of relevant courses and branch engagement/outreach activities.

Music of the Quantum

An ICAM/Rutgers quantum matter outreach site http://musicofthequantum.rutgers.edu/index.php,  founded and maintained by Piers Coleman that contains interviews with leaders in the field and a musical interpretation of quantum emergence and quantum criticality, created by composer Jaz Coleman, on commission from ICAM.

ICAMipedia

http://icamipedia.i2cam.org. is an online encyclopedia written by members of the ICAM community to provide more detailed information about emergent phenomena in matter, Despite the comparatively small and eclectic number of current entries, the site has potential as a place to which future readers can go for authoritative discussions of emergent behavior. For example, in the near future, we plan to initiate a series of entries grouped under the general heading, “Gateways to Emergence”– examples of the organizing concepts and principles responsible for emergent behavior. Each “Gateway” will contain explanatory paragraphs that spell out the way in which the concept explains emergent behavior, include “drop dead” visual examples, and contain links to web sites where one can learn more. ICAMipedia is momentarily not accepting new entries.

A SEE Initiatives Working Group has been established by ICAM to work with the ICAM leadership to:

• identify effective SEE programs at ICAM branches and build connections and collaborations between these.
• continue ICAM’s leadership role in its unique on-line science center, http://emergentuniverse.org. This will involve continuing its oversight and raising new funds for its exhibits from public and private sources, while working with UC Davis and other interested institutions to find a permanent home for this unique instrument of informal science education and public engagement with a broad audience.
• grow significant global SEE programs and collaborations by working with other leading institutions in the US and abroad to establish GSEE as a Global Science, Education, and Engagement Partnership. The world-wide celebration of Superconductivity at 100, marking the one-hundreth anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity in Leiden in 1911, provides an excellent opportunity for ICAM branches and their partners to share information and organize joint activities in connection with this unique event.
• build into its SEE initiatives four-way partnerships between scientists eager to communicate to the general public the results of their frontier research, teachers eager to develop new educational modules for their students, students at every level who wish to become actively engaged in outreach efforts, and informal science education (ISE) professionals in the museum and communications worlds who have the skills to translate complex and often invisible phenomena to the public.

Exploring our Emergent Universe/Developing an Emergent Perspective

We live in a universe in which interactions between the basic building blocks of matter or individuals in our societies give rise to unpredicted and unexpected emergent behavior at every scale, from the formation of a plasma made up of quarks and gluons shortly after the big bang, to the origin of life, the existence of high temperature superconductivity, the onset of consciousness in an infant, climate change, alternatives for sustainable energy, or the interplay between individuals, markets, and governments that leads to an economy.

Because emergent behavior of the whole cannot be predicted from a knowledge of component parts, this search is changing the landscape of modern scientific research away from the reductionist (top-down) paradigm toward an emergent (bottom-up) paradigm. In this new paradigm, the basic building blocks are the organizing principles responsible for its collective emergent behavior. Scientists search for these through a careful study of observed regularities and experimentally determined correlations between microscopic features that vary according to scale and from one phenomenon to another.