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Description

A person who has just watched an experiment run by a scientist (Visitor 1) is asked to replace the scientist and demonstrate the same experiment (under the supervision of the scientist) to someone else (Visitor 2). The Visitor 1 acts as a Science Communicator transferring the knowledge he/she has just gained.

The idea of the SC TRIANGLE is universal and is easily reproducible independently of time and place. There is much flexibility in this format and there is a wide range of possible applications of this activity regarding venue, age of participants, and the level of education of the participants. The SC TRIANGLE events can be of different scales depending on budgets or venue facilities possessed. The most important issue that can always be reached is the close cooperation between a scientist and a visitor during the event.

Target Audience
  • Adult citizens
  • Children 3-6
  • Children 7-12
  • Families
  • Teenagers

You can do it with all those groups, but we did it with professionals from different fields like public engagement or the cultural and creative sector.

Benefits

Benefits

A new quality of science communication is proposed in the SC TRIANGLE format: participants become real partners of scientists. Not only interaction but full cooperation between the scientists and the participants may be realized. Participating in the event visitors (and even only watching the event people) learn how to understand science, how to popularize science (they turn into Science Communicators during the event) and how to attract somebody’s attention. The involved scientists learn how to efficiently popularize science, improve their methods and gain new skills.

Preparations

  • Decide on a venue – choose the one where people tend to walk; it can be either an outdoor or indoor event (science festival, science picnic, shopping centre, etc.).
  • Find a scientist being also a Science Communicator, i.e. having the ability to contact the audience.
  • Choose, together with the scientist, a safe experiment that can be easily repeated by a non-scientist.
  • Prepare everything needed to run the experiment, together with protective clothing, glasses, gloves, etc. (if necessary).
  • Promote your event in advance.
  • Be active during the event, encourage passing by people to participate.

Institution

Barbara Cader-Sroka, Lower Silesian Science Festival, University of Wroclaw