Real-World Assessment as an Integral Component of an Undergraduate Science Communication Program

This paper discusses Australia’s oldest and largest undergraduate science communication program: that offered at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University. We outline the history of the program, and explain the pedagogy that drove its development. In particular, we address the assessment of student learning, which focuses on ‘real-world’ tasks. The four main assessment approaches discussed are 1) online blogs and opinion pieces; 2) a student conference, 3) research publication, and 4) work-integrated learning. These assessment approaches specifically target skills required by graduates to achieve both within the university and professionally. The different approaches require students to employ diverse communication techniques and strategies appropriate to their chosen audience. Students also gain practical experience outside of the university context, allowing them to recognise the relevance of their studies within an industry, private or government environment. Although these assessment practices are embedded in a specific science communication curriculum, we suggest that they can be incorporated within any science discipline major

"Paradise is a little too green for me": Discourses of environmental disaster in Doctor Who 1963-2010

<div>Throughout its history, the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who has engaged with many of the real-life scientific and political issues faced by human beings. Environmental problems have been a staple in the Doctor Who canon from as early as the programme’s second season in 1964 to as recently as 2008. Yet the programme’s representations of these problems – their causes, their effects, and their solutions – have changed significantly over that time. In this paper I examine these changes and find that the programme follows a trajectory of increasing resignation towards chronic environmental problems, and increasing disillusionment with the ability of the West – specifically Western science – to provide solutions.</div

Introduction to Doctor Who and Science

This chapter reviews representations of science and scientists in Doctor Who from 1963 to 2020, and critically reviews scholarship and popular works about science and Doctor Who from the past 40 years

Concluding remarks: science in twenties Doctor Who

This chapter critically reviews representations of science and scientists in the most recent series of Doctor Who at the time of writing, engaging with previous scholarship about these matters

Genetic comparison between Victorian and Tasmanian populations of Prasophyllum correctum D.L. Jones (Orchidaceae) suggests separate species

Genetic variation within and between Tasmanian and Victorian populations of the Gaping Leek Orchid Prasophyllum correctum (Orchidaceae) was investigated using the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method. The degree of fixed genetic differences between the two populations was substantial, suggesting that each population constitutes a different species. The Tasmanian population contained very little genetic variation, indicating that asexual reproduction or self-fertilisation may be the predominant reproductive mode, but this population does not appear to be clonal. Individuals from the Victorian population exhibited high levels of genetic variation relative to those from the Tasmanian population These findings suggest that the Victorian and Tasmanian P. correctum populations ought to be managed separately, and cross-pollination or translocation should be avoided, because of the lack of genctic similarity between them

Genetic comparison of populations of the rare Gorae Leek Orchid, Prasophyllum diversiflorum Nicholls (Orchidaceae)

The rare Gorae Leek Orchid, Prasophyllum diversiflorum, is listed as a threatened species under Victorian legislation. Information on its patterns of genetic variation is urgently required to develop effective conservation strategies for the species. Th

From the margins to the mainstream: deconstructing science communication as a white, Western paradigm

In this commentary we are concerned with what mainstream science communication has neglected through cultural narrowness and ambient racism: other practitioners, missing audiences, unvalued knowledge, unrecognised practices. We explore examples from First Nations Peoples in the lands now known as Australia, from Griots in West Africa and from People’s Science Movements in India to help us reimagine science communication. To develop meaningfully inclusive approaches to science communication, we argue there is an urgent need for the ‘mainstream’ to recognise, value and learn from science communication practices that are all too often seen as at ‘the margins’ of this field

How do people think about the science they encounter in fiction? Undergraduates investigate responses to science in The Simpsons

In this study, students and staff involved in an undergraduate science communication course investigated people's responses to a science-rich episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons. Using focus groups, we sought to find out if and how the episode influenced our 34 participants’ perceptions of science, but our results problematised the very notion of influence. People's responses to the science in the episode varied widely, and sometimes in contradictory ways, from some participants seeing no science at all in the episode to others seeing science as the ideological focus of the entire story. Participants’ discussions were shaped and influenced by a myriad of factors, including their relationship to science and their personal and religious beliefs, but also historical discourses, political discourses, experiences watching other television programmes and other factors. We draw on the work of Roman Ingarden to suggest that people fill in or ‘concretise’ the ambiguities and gaps in a fiction text in ways specific to their personal, social, geographical and temporal context, resulting in different interpretations of the text's meaning with each fresh viewing. We conclude that a deficit model which assumes that people absorb fiction's content in a linear, passive and credulous manner is an inappropriate characterisation of how people process the science in fiction