Brigitte Nerlich is Professor of Science, Language, and Society at the Institute for Science and Society at the University of Nottingham. She will be speaking at the Science Communication Conference in May in the session on 'bridging theory and practice'.

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There have been two incidents recently that have brought to the fore some tensions between the theory and practice of science communication. One incident was the so-called Cox/Ince debate and the other was what I shall refer to as the Glaser/Cox incident.

Cox/Ince

The Cox/Ince debate began when Brian Cox, physicist and science communicator, and Robin Ince, comedian and science communicator, published an article in New Statesman on 18 December last year, entitled ‘Politicians must not elevate mere opinion over science’ (for an overview of the debate that followed, see this blog by Peter Broks and this blog by myself, focusing on science communication). One follow-up blog post by ‘Gavin’ in particular was interesting, as it encapsulated my general impression of what was going on. The blogger wrote:

Science presenter Fran Scott shares some top tips for finding ideas for inspiring but feasible science demonstrations.

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Hello, I'm Fran; a science translator, demo developer and presenter. I'm a qualified scientist who can describe the subject to everyone and anyone who's interested, and even those that think they're not! I play with the subject, stripping it down to its exciting and curious bare bones.

Over the past decade I've designed science demonstrations for various venues and shows including the Science Museum, BBC live stage shows and numerous television productions. I have even exploded hydrogen in a Nobel-prize winner’s hands (those belonging to Sir Paul Nurse, in case you were wondering).

Kate Quillin is a 15-year-old student from Watford in Hertfordshire. She is currently in Year 10 at Watford Grammar School for Girls, and is studying for 12 GCSEs. She completed a Bronze CREST Award a couple of years ago, and is now finalising her Silver Award by using her research from her Bronze Award. She says that she is yet to decide on a career path, but that science is a definite possibility.

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Somewhere in the hundreds of fascinating stands at the Big Bang Fair 2012, my friend and I were presenting our Bronze CREST Award project – ‘Does hairspray weaken human hair?’ Over the three days, there were hundreds and hundreds of parents, teachers, children and science enthusiasts that passed our stand – probably because of its proximity to the café, but I like to think that some were genuinely interested.

by Katherine Mathieson

This week sees the launch of Calls of the wild, a new mass participation experiment as part of National Science & Engineering Week 2013, which asks members of the public to contribute to psychologists’ understanding about how noises from nature can affect mood. National Science & Engineering Week has a rich tradition of interesting and popular mass participation experiments, where ordinary people can contribute to building the body of knowledge that we call science.

Alongside the preparations for the Calls of the wild experiment, there seems to be a wave of interest in ‘Citizen science’ projects, in which members of the public actively collect or analyse research data.