Most programs that create opportunities for the public to engage in scientific research invite the public to collect data, but there is a call to expand opportunities for engagement in additional aspects of the scientific process. One reason behind this call is the hypothesis that people who participate to a greater degree in the scientific process experience more robust learning outcomes. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a quasi-experiment by using a pre-post survey design and comparing varying degrees of participation in a Bird Cams Lab investigation. Bird Cams Lab was a virtual space in which the public worked with scientists to design and implement co-created investigations involving live streaming or recorded footage of birds. We found that the higher the degree of participation in the investigation, the greater the increase in content knowledge, self-efficacy, and selfreported improvement in science inquiry skills. Interestingly, involvement in data collection was associated with the greatest gains in content knowledge and self-efficacy regardless of involvement in other parts of the scientific process. For programs with limited funding and resources that seek to increase participants' content knowledge and self-efficacy, focusing efforts on supporting data collection may be the most impactful.
A kiosk-based survey at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 2016–2018 allowed us to assess public knowledge of antibiotics and public attitudes toward microbes in museum goers. Over 22,000 visitors from 172 countries and territories answered several carefully designed questions about microbes and antibiotics. These visitors also entered age, gender, and country demographic data that allowed for stratification along these demographic and geographic divisions. Because museum goers are likely to be better informed about these and other science-based topics, the results described here can set a potential upper bound for public knowledge on these topics. Surprisingly, the results of our analysis of museum goers’ answers about microbes and antibiotics indicate a substantial lack of familiarity with both topics. For example, overall only about 50% of respondents can correctly identify penicillin as an antibiotic and less than 50% of museum visitors view microbes as beneficial. The results described here suggest that we are perhaps off target with our educational efforts in this area and that a major shift in approach toward more basic microbial topics is warranted in our educational efforts.
Th is paper argues that important notions are imbedded within the seemingly marginal backgrounds of the ceiling paintings in the Alhambra's so-called "Hall of Justice." Th e shared European and Islamic iconographies evident in the paintings' settings, and the creatures that appear therein, reiterate the complexities inherent in the multicultural context of the Alhambra. Th rough the processes of intercultural appropriation, interpretation and adaptation, these plants and animals seem to transcend their many individual cultural resonances, generating new meanings based on the particular convergences fostered by the Nasrid court. Th e paintings' backgrounds, on the edges of the central courtly dramas, literally visualize the cultural "outsideness" of forests, which, as spaces for seclusion and distance from the distractions of daily life, also may have served as a metaphor for the Nasrid court in Granada. At the same time, these newly reconstituted meanings often seem to speak directly to the nature of the relationships between the figures depicted in the main scenes. Displaying integrated associations deliberately culled from the visual repertoires of several cultures, these paintings appear to offer something of an oasis, where intellectuals of various religious and cultural affiliations would have been encouraged to engage in contemplation and dialogue with one another.
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