The role of science festivals
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Citation
Durant, J. “The role of science festivals.” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 8 (February 19, 2013):
2681-2681.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1300182110
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
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Final published version
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Thu May 26 05:12:33 EDT 2016
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http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/80703
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OPINION
OPINION
The role of science festivals
John Durant1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum Director and
Adjunct Professor in the Science, Technology, and Society Program
The wind of change is blowing through the
world of science outreach. Tried and tested
approaches—in journalism, broadcasting,
museums, science centers, and elsewhere—
are being reworked in unconventional and
sometimes surprising ways. At the same time,
older assumptions—about the importance
of emphasizing “objectivity” in science, of
relying on professional mediators, or of a
single-minded focus on conveying factual
knowledge to under-informed audiences—
are being actively questioned or simply set
aside.
Not so long ago, science seemed to “know
its place” in popular culture. It was found
mainly in the science and technology sections of quality newspapers, in specialist
“science slots” on radio and TV, in dedicated museums and science centers, and
the like. Not so—or at least, not so much—
today. Now, science is all over the blogosphere. It’s finding a place or two in prime
time radio and TV, and it’s starting to spread
to new corners of the public square. Where
once you had to know where to look for science outreach, now you’re as likely to come
across it in a café, a bar, a theatre, or a club
as you are in a university or community college extension program. All around us, the
once-bright line between science and popular culture appears to be dissolving.
One sign of the times is the recent
proliferation of science festivals across the
United States. Science festivals are public
celebrations of science and technology that
span anything from several days to several
weeks, and generally involve many different events in many different venues across a
community. They may include large public
expositions or carnivals; exhibitions, lectures, workshops, discussions, and debates;
and both the performing and the visual arts.
Until well into the 2000s, there were a mere
handful of such festivals in North America.
But following the launch of the citywide
Cambridge, MA Science Festival in 2007,
others have quickly sprouted up all over the
country.
With the support of the National Science Foundation, a group of four emerg-
ing science festivals established the Science
Festival Alliance (SFA) in 2009. In just 3
years, the network has grown to around
two dozen science festival initiatives, and
expects to be serving twice this number by
2015.* Through an NSF grant that funds
the SFA, we have been able to conduct
evaluations of several sites over 3 years,
telling us that these festivals are having a
positive impact on large numbers of people,
that they’re effectively engaging underserved
audiences, and that they’re particularly
good at connecting audiences directly with
professional scientists and engineers.†
But beyond these undoubtedly important
results, what stands out for me is the sheer
inventiveness of the science festival scene.
Over the past few months, a dedicated (and
fast moving) science festival aficionado could
have gone on a science crawl of cafés, bars,
and restaurants in San Francisco’s Mission
District; attended The Story Collider, a live
science story-telling event in New York;
cheered on historians of science mashing it
up with improv comedians in Philadelphia;
run the controls under the Fountains of
Bellagio in Las Vegas; watched Icarus at the
Edge of Time, a full-orchestral work plus animated film and live narrator in New York;
and much, much more.
What these and hundreds of other science
festival events across the country are demonstrating is that a huge amount of creative
energy is currently being expended in finding new ways to link scientists and sciencewatchers with audiences. Eating bugs with
the symphony in Raleigh, throwing out the
first pitch with a robot in Philadelphia, or
learning about physics by flipping ollies at
a San Diego skate park; all of these are now
part of the science festival scene. If you can
dream up some kind of creative new science
event, the chances are pretty good that a science festival organizer somewhere will be
happy to give it a try.
I’d like to see this experimental approach
to science outreach extend far more widely.
Frankly, every community in the country
that boasts a research university, a sciencebased company, or a science-based non-
Durant
John Durant.
profit (which is pretty much every community in the country) ought to have a science
festival of its own. Such festivals don’t need
to be big and expensive; what they need to
be is creative and relevant. We need science
festivals, not only in the big metropolitan
centers, but also in smaller cities, towns,
and rural communities across the United
States. And, like the communities they’re
designed to serve, these festivals need to be
endlessly and wonderfully diverse.
Every American deserves to live within
reach of a science festival. The SFA is gearing up to help make this a reality, and I hope
that all scientists will join them in this effort. One thing’s for sure: the country will be
much the better for it.
Author contributions: J.D. wrote the paper.
Conflict of interest statement: John Durant is Principal Investigator
on an NSF grant and recipient of a Sloan Foundation grant that
fund the Science Festival Alliance and related activities.
E-mail: jdurant@mit.edu.
1
*
For more details about the work of SFA, see:
www.sciencefestivals.org.
†
Goodman Research Group, Inc. (2012). The Science Festival
Alliance: Creating a Sustainable National Network of Science
Festivals: Year 2 Summative Evaluation. Cambridge, MA.
PNAS |
February 19, 2013 | vol. 110 | no. 8 | 2681