As a student at the Colorado School of Mines, each students course load is heavily sided towards math, science, and engineering courses. However, to graduate with any undergraduate degree here at CSM, students have to take at least one 400-Level LAIS (Liberal Arts and International Studies) course. In my case, I chose to take Communicating Science, which the main assignment during the semester is designing and maintaining a science blog, hence the existence of this blog. The main focus of this course is to learn how to more effectively communicate the science and engineering processes and innovations we may come across in our careers, to the media and public. One such model discussed in Investigating Science Communication the Information Age is "upstream public engagement." This model focuses on getting the public involved with science and engineering innovations from the get go. The sooner the public gets involved the better. If the public gets involved from the beginning, they can shed light on their doubts/concerns with the direction of certain innovations. They can also introduce an important point of view, as most often the public is the end user of all science and engineering innovations.
I feel that one of the best ways to get the public involved is by allowing them to join in on the science and engineering process by some smaller scale do-it-yourself workshops or projects. One great source of learning how to do just about anything is YouTube. So why not develop a video that would break down the process and develop step by step way of giving the public the means of building their own household process. In the case of waste to energy, and more importantly anaerobic digestion of wastes to methane, a simple household digester can be constructed out of materials from any local hardware store. The following video is first pass attempt of developing a way to build a household anaerobic digester.
This is an interesting thought. I think we could debate whether YouTube videos function as engagement--some certainly do. In this case, it seems like the video is functioning more as a resource than anything. But you've given me something to think about, for sure.
ReplyDeleteMy thought on using YouTube videos (mainly do-it-yourself videos) as a form of engagement comes from the idea that anyone who is interested in a certain technology (such as waste to energy) can create and build something of there own to experiment with and to improve upon, all the while posting their videos in a central place available to whoever has access to the internet. Forming groups or communities of these people and their ideas can and should go a long way in creating cheaper and more efficient processes in the what ever field they may be interested in.
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