Conference: Beyond Broader Impact: A Strategy to Enhance the Public's Understanding of Plant Science; April 1, 2006; Rockville, MD

  • Cyr, Richard (PI)

Project: Research project

Project Details

Description

This project calls for a one-day workshop that will be held to identify essential elements needed in producing a plan of action to enable the American Society for Plant Biologists (ASPB) and the Botanical Society of America (BSA) to help their membership better communicate the relevance of plant sciences to K-16 students and society at large. A white paper describing the plan of action, to be produced within one month after the meeting, will recommend a 5-year strategic plan to promote and encourage both memberships to make these efforts part of their usual activities. The white paper will include steps needed for insuring that graduate students, who will become the next generation of scientists, receive appropriate training to meet this goal. In an era of changing demographics, it will be essential that the plan address the diversity of the target audiences. The Broader Impact of this workshop will be to help plant scientists better communicate the importance of their research to various target audiences, which include K-12 teachers and students, undergraduate and graduate students, and society at large. The Intellectual Merit of this workshop will be to help plant scientists learn the various paths that can be taken in their own intellectual efforts when putting their work in a broader context that is accessible to a wider audience. We anticipate that a major element of this plan will entail how to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts in order to promote only meaningful activities. The workshop will be composed of approximately 20 participants with diverse backgrounds; therefore, a variety of perspectives will be represented at this meeting. Prior to the meeting, each participant will be asked to address a series of questions from the perspective of 4 target audiences; namely K-12, undergraduate, Graduate/ Postdoctoral/ Faculty, and informal education. In using three breakaway session groups, we will identify key elements that need to be incorporated into the strategic plan. A draft of the final white paper will be distributed to the attendees for final comment, and then presented to the Education Committees of both societies for implementation. The PI will disseminate the plan to the ASPB membership at the 2006 annual meeting.

StatusFinished
Effective start/end date4/1/069/30/07

Funding

  • National Science Foundation: $9,656.00

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