What is at stake for scientists when communicating ecology? Insight from the informal communication initiative “Cammini LTER”

What is at stake for scientists when communicating ecology? This is the basic question tackled in this paper, that we explored through reflections about an initiative of informal communication of ecological research called “Cammini LTER”: itineraries connecting a number of sites belonging to the Italian Long-Term Ecological Research network (LTER-Italy). LTER-Italy ecologists walked and cycled together with citizens creating a physical and visible movement of researchers ‘towards’ and ‘with’ citizens, aiming at providing the public with the opportunity to get familiar with Italian ecosystems, from the sea to alpine tundra. We address here the debates and the critical considerations among researchers themselves, stimulated by the overall experience, with focus on some relevant issues pertaining science communication, and even research production, evidencing the need for a cultural shift, which go far beyond the national context and the LTER – Italy network. Using a participant observations approach, through researchers’ words used to describe - formally and informally - the experience, we report and comment here the main narratives emerged, showing different attitudes of LTER researchers in Cammini towards the society and the role of ecology in it. Relationship and knowledge exchange appear crucial for communicating ecology, which can thus become an opportunity for building new qualities of knowledge and for creating a shared civic culture, able to make all players feel mutual responsible and contribute to the solution of particular socio-ecological challenges

Il dialogo dei ricercatori con la società civile: dalla Citizen Science ai Cammini LTER

Presentation of Cammini LTER at XXVIII Congresso dell’Associazione Nazionale dei Musei Scientifici. I musei Scientifici nell’anno europeo del patrimonio

I Cammini della Rete LTER nel panorama di comunicazione della scienza e public engagement - perché è importante riflettere sui modelli di comunicazione

Il contributo mira a presentare e ragionare sui modelli di comunicazione della scienza e su come i Cammini della Rete LTER-Italia si inseriscano in questo panorama ampio e diversificat

Indagine sulla comunicazione della scienza nella ricerca Prime elaborazioni CNR, INAF, INFN e Università

Un decennio dopo la pubblicazione del rapporto Scienza e Società da parte della House of Lords inglese, con il quale sono stati introdotti i concetti di dialogo e public engagement che hanno contribuito significativamente a modificare teorie e pratiche di comunicazione della scienza, ci sembra opportuno provare a riflettere sulle modalità con cui gli scienziati si rapportano con il pubblico. Con questo paper vogliamo quindi riportare i risultati ottenuti da un sondaggio postale online sottoposto a un campione di ricercatori impegnati nel campo della fisica cui è stato chiesto di riflettere sul rapporto tra scienza e pubblico anche alla luce delle loro personali esperienze e pratiche di comunicazione della scienza. Come si evince dalle pagine che seguono, le modalità con cui i nostri intervistati comunicano la scienza non possono essere racchiuse in modelli fissi e prestabiliti, e sono caratterizzata da una multiciplita di attività, opinioni e forme

TELEA: A PROPOSAL OF REMOTE SENSING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

TELEA (|| Telerilevamento e l'Educazione Ambientale) è un progetto di formazione per l'educazione ambientale promosso dalla Regione Lombardia e coordinato dall'IREA del CNR di Milano con lo scopo di formare gli insegnanti delle scuole medie inferiori e superiori e i responsabili CREA della Regione Lombardia sul Telerilevamento e l'Osservazione della Terra come strumenti conoscitivi del territorio e dell'ambiente, a supporto delle attività didattiche interdisciplinari nelle scuole. Nel presente articolo vengono descritte le caratteristiche del progetto e sitraccia un bilancio dell'esperienza e delle possibili prospettive.A description of the Project TELEA (Remote Sensing for Environmental Education) proposed by the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of Environment (IREA) of CNR (Milan) and funded by the Lombardia Region is here reported. Objective of the Project was to train teachers and Region personnel support their environment educational activities through Earth Observation Sciences and Remote Sensing

Dialoghi sul cibo: Food Futurings Tours at the #expo2015 / Dialogues on food: Food Futurings Tours at the #expo2015

Food Futuring Tours is a collaborative project between two researchers from the Italian National Research Council (IREA-CNR) in Milano, Italy and two researchers from DG Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The project is a public participatory experience aiming at re-imagining food in the XXI Century. It consisted of 5 semi-guided walking tours, through the pavilions of EXPO2015 which focus was on “Feeding the planet, Energy for Life” (May-October 2015, Milan). During the tours, participants collected ideas, visions and imaginaries about the future of food/food of the future; later they attended workshop sessions to develop these issues. Participants visited a variety of Pavilions such as NGO Pavilions, industry/private Pavilions, The supermarket of the future, Slow-Food Pavilion and Pavilions representative of North and South, East and West of the world (participants interacted with people in the Pavilions when possible).The aim of Food Futuring Tours was to collect insights, imaginaries and expectations about food futures through a reflexive debate with citizens who usually are described and performed as just consumers. The project explored new ways to engage citizens’ views about an urgent and complex human issue: feeding the planet with quality. During an event, such as EXPO, this initiative opened a space that stimulated and challenged the imagination of citizens about food futures – including food production, distribution and consumption - by using non-discursive methods of citizen involvement in futuring processes based on ideas of anticipation and extended dialogue. This approach enhanced allowed this small number of citizens to view the EXPO as a site to contest and interrogate prevalent narratives of food futures. We have explored in this project ways of creating or connecting to safe spaces where these types of dialogues can be carried out on the one hand, on the other hand we have illustrated that even institutions that have insufficient interaction with civil society, can actually in swift ways promote such dialogues about the future , which in any case cannot be relinquished to those who are credited as “experts”.JRC.I.1-Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluatio

Dialoghi sul cibo: Food Futurings Tours at the #expo2015 / Dialogues on food: Food Futurings Tours at the #expo2015

Food Futuring Tours is a collaborative project between two researchers from the Italian National Research Council (IREA-CNR) in Milano, Italy and two researchers from DG Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The project is a public participatory experience aiming at re-imagining food in the XXI Century. It consisted of 5 semi-guided walking tours, through the pavilions of EXPO2015 which focus was on “Feeding the planet, Energy for Life” (May-October 2015, Milan). During the tours, participants collected ideas, visions and imaginaries about the future of food/food of the future; later they attended workshop sessions to develop these issues. Participants visited a variety of Pavilions such as NGO Pavilions, industry/private Pavilions, The supermarket of the future, Slow-Food Pavilion and Pavilions representative of North and South, East and West of the world (participants interacted with people in the Pavilions when possible).The aim of Food Futuring Tours was to collect insights, imaginaries and expectations about food futures through a reflexive debate with citizens who usually are described and performed as just consumers. The project explored new ways to engage citizens’ views about an urgent and complex human issue: feeding the planet with quality. During an event, such as EXPO, this initiative opened a space that stimulated and challenged the imagination of citizens about food futures – including food production, distribution and consumption - by using non-discursive methods of citizen involvement in futuring processes based on ideas of anticipation and extended dialogue. This approach enhanced allowed this small number of citizens to view the EXPO as a site to contest and interrogate prevalent narratives of food futures. We have explored in this project ways of creating or connecting to safe spaces where these types of dialogues can be carried out on the one hand, on the other hand we have illustrated that even institutions that have insufficient interaction with civil society, can actually in swift ways promote such dialogues about the future , which in any case cannot be relinquished to those who are credited as “experts”.JRC.I.1-Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluatio

Integrating environmental and social dimensions with science-based knowledge for a Sustainable Pesticides Management – A project of Lombardy Region in Italy.

Achieving a change towards the sustainable use and management of pesticides requires a multi-ple perspective approach that combines traditional knowledge, experience of different local stakeholders, scientific expertise, and context-specific data to provide useful and understandable information for the target farmers. In this paper, the incorporation of the information on environ-mental and social dimensions information into a “science-based” pesticide management practice, is presented as an example of a replicable multidisciplinary approach. This approach depicts the importance of the context -specific scenario analysis and of the involvement of farmers starting from their practices and their knowledge. A diverse range of engagement initiatives have been adopted to consult, inform, and involve the community. Tools as target guidelines of good prac-tices, self-evaluation checklists, and a user-friendly indicator, that considerconsiders social, en-vironmental, and territorial parameters of the specific area, gained largea lot of interest and trust and have proven to be useful in disseminating the methodology of Environmental Risk Assess-mentenvironmental risk assessment to farmers, supporting and assisting them in the comparison of different phytosanitary strategies at farm scale, to identify weaknesses in their current pesti-cide management at farm level and to find corresponding corrective actions. The experience also highlighted the importance of the role of properly trained and informed advisor