COSEE California has as one of its key initiatives facilitating mutually beneficial partnerships between scientists and educators and sharing effective practices for establishing these partnerships with the broader community. In 2006 COSEE CA (C. Peach, S. Franks and E. Simms), COSEE Mid-Atlantic (J. McDonnell), and COSEE New England (A. Thorrold) created a guide for scientists interested in participating in education and public outreach (EPO). EPO refers broadly to efforts to increase awareness and understanding of science. Audiences targeted by EPO can include students, teachers, children, adults, and just about any conceivable subset of these (e.g., economically disadvantaged youth, adult education instructors, museum visitors, parents, newspaper readers, high school students).
Education & Public Outreach: A Guide for Scientists
This publication represents a cross-center effort aimed at catalyzing research scientists’ participation in EPO. It provides scientists with strategies and guidance for developing or engaging in outreach activities and directly addresses how they can work with educators to satisfy funding agencies 'broader impact' requirements. The guide is an outline of the major issues, strategies and tools required to engage scientists in E&O, not a complete or prescriptive treatise.
Each member of the team that developed this publication brought a somewhat different perspective on researcher-educator partnerships. This led to extremely productive discussions, and a document that is sensitive to the needs and priorities of both scientists and educators.
The guide was published by The Oceanography Society as:
This “capacity building” activity represents a major step forward in forging the strong national partnerships that are required to sustain and grow the National COSEE Network. Moreover, COSEE has come to be recognized as a national leader in the area of engaging the research community in science education as evidenced by requests for COSEE participation in workshops related to “broader impacts”.
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