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Transcript from a portion of the conference, Communicating the Future: Best Practices for Communication of Science and Technology to the Public, March 6-8, 2002. Panel
Discussion: Broadening the Audience for Science and Technology Burnet: Okay. Change of hat. Change of gear, and a very, very fascinating session. In warming up to chair this, I went and spoke to as many of the participants as I could, and it really brought home to me the incredible richness of what's been brought together at this conference and the diversity of it. And without anymore ado, introduced Yolanda George. Yolanda George of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is going to talk about "Science Linkages in the Community." Yolanda. George: Do
you have the - George: Good afternoon, I have about seven minutes - and you're going to give me a sign, right Frank-to give you all an impression of what we've been doing at AAAS for the last 15 or more years to introduce community-based organizations and youth-serving organizations to science, in a sense, building a community concept. So, what I decided to do, since I had to present all of this work in seven minutes is, I'm going to flash up a bunch of overheads and then I have two overheads as, sort of, the lessons that we've learned and the challenges, meaning that there are some lessons that we've learned - I don't know if we've applied them all yet, but - anyway. This work occurs under the auspices of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is AAAS, it's a professional society. And most people know Science magazine, which is our main product, but we do a host of other education, as well as international and public policy work at AAAS, as well, too. The work occurs within the AAAS Directory for Education and Human Resources, and since 1985, primarily with funding from Carnegie Corporation, initially, and Dewitt Wallace, which is a youth serving organization, the Ford Foundation, Intel, and a host of others, we've actually formed partnerships with community-based organizations and youth-serving groups to help to both do leadership development, help them to build their own programs in capacity within their own organizations, to do various community science events, either for adults or for youth, or wherever it's appropriate for them to do it. And when I'm talking about these groups - I'm talking about groups like the National Urban League, ASPIRA, Girl Scouts, Girls Inc., Easter Seals - we work - our projects are primarily in the minority groups, girls, and persons with disabilities, and also with low-literacy groups. What I'm showing you now was a project that was funded by NIH, and we actually worked with literacy groups that served adults, as well as children. So, various topics: the brain - this is just to give you some idea about the format, another topic that we worked about was "Your Genes are Choices," which is on cloning, and I'll talk a little bit - refer to these when I'm summing up. We work with faith-based communities. This one in particular was the AAAS Flag Church project, where - and this was one that was funded by Ford, but we worked with faith-based communities in general, not just the ones that are based in minority communities. This was a project that was funded by Bristol Myers that was done with ASPIRA, which is a Puerto Rican-based organization, and it's basically a heath, life-science type of base program. We also had funding from Americorp, where came up with a manual that could be used in all these different groups if they wanted to train teenagers to work with this. We've done one where they can train college students to work within their centers. In terms of disabilities, we have a product called "Roadmaps and Rampways," which is actually the story of some undergraduate and graduate college students who are disabled and actually worked at NASA and IBM facilities. But it's about their experiences as young people in science, and their experiences within the higher education system, as well. With Easter Seals, we did develop the usual hands-on types of science books. With Recording for the Blind - we did a project - if you know anything about recording for the blind, they translate books for students at all levels, meaning primary as well as higher ed, and when we visited RFB, there weren't very many science books being translated, so the idea there was to get more of the science books translated, and that project was funded by NSF. We also have a radio show at AAAS, as some of you may be familiar with, "Science Update," which is done by Bob Hirshon, which is a 90-second spot on "America in the Morning," with mutual broadcasting us, and then there are some independents. So, there are about 520 stations that get these 90-second spots, as well. Along with our radio
show, we've also created a children's - well, it was a radio show when
there were more children radio stations around, but there are not as many
these days, so it's an online. And then there's a newer feature that just
being funded by NSF, but this is designed for the upper-elementary age
group. But some of the lessons that have been learned, and they are similar I think to some of the things Bruce was talking about, as well as Frank. We're interested in building sustainable community science partnerships with these groups; ones that go beyond just disseminating material. So, we actually focus on that leadership development, much in the same way as any other professional development, and we help to build the organizational capacity of these organizations to do it, meaning that they go out and compete for grants and get them. And I guess one measure of success is when your people you've trained start beating you out of grants. And so, we're at that
point in that stage. The other thing is, and I'm not going to dwell on
some of these because I think the points have been made, but aspiring
and professional scientists and engineers need leadership development
and experiences in communicating science to the public. Some of you may
be familiar with the AAAS Science Media Program, where we place fellows
within print and broadcasting venues, and we try to create a lot of ways
to really prepare scientists to do this in an effective way. In communicating science to broader audiences, it's important to make the connection between science and everyday experience. I think both Bruce and Frank kind of alluded to that. And, you know, basically because adults who don't really know a lot about science, whether it's about electricity, air, water, animals, plants; weather, space, medicine - and what we feel is that they may not know the particular terms, but they certainly have some life experiences that help them to understand some of this. And using the words "science" in promotions and in titles for materials should be used with care. I think Bruce pointed that out, as well as Frank and what he was doing. Community science events need to include both targeted programs and embedded programs. Frank talked a lot about embedded programs for science. The traditionals are the public science days. We have a lot of online broadcast and print materials, but we feel it's important to combine that with community science events. Just having those materials isn't enough to reach some of these audiences. And youth science materials should include links to mathematics, reading, writing, and technology, and I guess as the gentlemen was saying who posed the question - and the opportunity to handle the tools and the science equipment and to do that, as well. And then, there's still this big debate about how you link all this out of school stuff to science and math standards. It's easier when we think about it in terms of inquiry or process standards. I think it's more problematic when we think about it in terms of the content standards, and my time is up. Burnet: Thank you, Yolanda. Okay. Next up is Jan Tyler of the Department of Energy, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and appropriately called, "Themes: Becoming Enthusiastic About Math and Science." Tyler: I think I'm going to try to use the microphone and kind of dance up here. Actually, let me try this. I can do this. All right. My name is Jan Tyler,
I'm from Jefferson Lab, which is a Department of Energy research facility
in Newport News, Virginia. And, sorry if my pictures are a little fuzzy,
but Jefferson Lab is a I'm here, today, to talk about our BEAMS program, but before I talk about that, I'm going to get a little more general, and this is another change I made last night in my talk. We want to - everywhere else it says "explain math and science," and I changed it to "communicate math and science," because I really did learn yesterday that there is a difference - to students, teachers, parents, and I use the general public thing, but we do many things to get to these different people throughout the community. We also have resources for teachers and college faculty, and we also have opportunities for high school and college students to come to the lab for the summer to work one-on-one with our scientists. For the first goal, explaining math and science, which should be "communicating" math and science, we see about 10,000 students each year. Only about 2,000 of those are really good, strong contacts. The others are just kind of quick and dirty, in and out of the door, two to four hour type of things. One of the programs is called the "Earth Science Series." It's a monthly lecture activity for science-attentive high school students. There are about 200 students that come each month, and they like science. They want to be there, and we bring difference speakers in from around the country, and maybe even Canada, to talk to them in the evening. And then we have some outreach programs, which I'll explain on the next slide, and then finally, I'll get to BEAMS. We've gotten so many requests from teachers who wanted to bring their students to the laboratory to see what we do, and we had to start this thing called a "Physics Fest," and this helps us bring in as many people as possible, we kind of fill an auditorium like this, and we do some science demos. And they're not just fun, quick and dirty demos, we actually explain what we do with liquid nitrogen, and we some things with lasers and plasmas and stuff, and so we get quite a few students that way. And then another good way to broaden your audience is to tack onto what's already there. These two programs - I'm pointing like you can see where I'm pointing - these two programs on the bottom, the "chrome" and the "atoms," are programs that were started by local universities, and we just kind of help out, and so that helps us expand our audience to kids that we might now usually see. Okay. To BEAMS. Has anyone looked at the poster? It's right around the corner. It stands for Becoming Enthusiastic About Math and Science. We've been doing it since 1991, and what it does is, it allows teachers to bring their class of students to a laboratory for a week. They spend their entire school day at Jefferson Lab for five consecutive days. And while they're there, we're not teaching them - we're helping them connect, helping the students connect what they've been learning in school to how it can be used at Jefferson Lab or how it's even used at NASA, or how it's used in the everyday world. So that's what we're trying to do there. And through that, we're able to motivate students to keep learning. We show them that there's more to math than just a book. You can do neat things with math. Some of them know that, some of them don't. Hopefully they remember that once they leave. Give teachers some activities that they can use back at the school, so when they go back to school, it's not just the same old thing. The teachers have things, they're going to go back and bridge that gap. And there's also an opportunity for parents to become involved. We invite the parents one night a week to the laboratory to be there with their kids, so the kids can show the parents what they did during the week. And then BEAMS is pretty much run by our staff. I have seventy - I think there's actually 78 people who work with the students when they come. They do different activities. You just never know, when the kids come, when teachers come year-after-year, they get different staff people that they meet, because we have five or six people that are trained to do each activity, and the staff like it, actually, just as much as the kids do. I think I've said this already. Some students come for three years. We used to only do it for sixth grade students, and we found that a week in the life of a sixth grader is great, and it might last through the eighth grade, through the ninth grade, but we just couldn't measure how far it would last. So, for one of our schools, we made it into a multi-year program, where students come for a week in the sixth grade, come for two days in the seventh grade, and come for two or three days in the eighth grade. So we kind of continue that relationship with them through middle school, which is a very important time for kids. And we have lots of fuzzy, good stuff that the teachers have said that the kids have said - the thing at the bottom, where I say "students come to school during BEAMS," we did this study - let me get my numbers right - a year or so, or actually two years ago - and on average, at this one particular school I'm going to talk about, Huntington Middle School, each class had about 15 absences a week on average, but during BEAMS, there were only 7 absences a week. So kids were excited about coming, and they were coming to school more. And then - is anyone from Virginia? Some of you? Virginia has this lovely thing called The Standards of Learning in their education system. Every frickin' thing is based around the Standards of Learning. [laughter] You can't do anything unless you - and people call if S.O.L., everything - so, and this is their third attempt. I've been at the lab for ten years. We went through this one testing process, I'm going to do great, I've got some data to collect, started collecting data to attract the kids. Then they switched to a different one, the Literacy Passport Test, collected that and then they abandoned that. Now, they're on the Standard of Learning. Luckily they've been doing it for at least, this will be the fifth year of that. It's where you test students in the 3rd, 5th, 8th, and then high school about what they've learned. So, we had to re-do some of our activities and things to make sure that everything addressed the frickin' S.O.L.'s, and I'm not the only person that refers to it as "the frickin' S.O.L.'s." [laughter] But it's a good thing because - wow, that's really fuzzy, I'm sorry - it gives me something the director of the laboratory and the senior management, their all scientists. Scientists want numbers. Give me data to show me what you're doing. So this is cool, I have data for them. That's the only good thing about the frikin' S.O.L.'s. [laughter] This is our main BEAMS school that we see in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, and then the students take this test at the 8th grade level. These are schools in the area that I found that were similar to our BEAM school, and you can kind of see that their number's a little bit high. I mean, it's four years of data. This is all the data that I have now, so, we'll see what happens over time, but it's an interesting number and it's keeping my boss happy. And then I have some graphs of - this little guy's a BEAMS school. These are our three control schools. This is our other BEAMS school that comes in the 6th and 8th grade, and they didn't start coming in in the 8th grade until 2000. I kept that on there to show that they're holding steady, and then when we started doing 6th and 8th grade, it kind of jumped up a bit, so that's kind of cool. And that previous slide was for math. These are for science scores, and this really tells me not a whole lot of anything. I like the math data much better. Okay. Then I have some quoted from officials at the schools. We know it does good things. We can see the good things in the kids and the teachers, but it's just so hard to prove this type of thing. It's just so hard. And we have two conference rooms at the laboratories set up to be classrooms, and we have about 12 or 13 activities that we do with them, and at this point - Frank, do I have another two minutes? Burnet: You have one. "The importance of science in our community is increasing, and with it, the need for more scientists. '"We have a big responsibility to help educate the next generation of scientists and engineers for the nation.'' Tomorrow's scientists are growing up today. So Jefferson Labs sponsors and innovative education program for middle school children, called BEAMS." '"BEAMS stands for Becoming Enthusiastic About Math, Science and Technology.'" '"The BEAMS program allows the students the opportunity to expand their knowledge in those areas; math, science and technology, and also gives them hands-on applications and makes it makes realistic, makes it more real-life for them."' "Classes of 6th graders spend a week at the lab. Lab scientists teach the classes, sharing their knowledge and their passion for exploration." '"Whenever the teacher's enthusiastic about what they're doing, you can see it."' '"It's a tremendous program. It's become an integral part of our curriculum.'" Tyler: That's it. Thank you. Burnet: Well next up we have Sylvia Ortiz, from New Mexico State University: "Information at the Border: BIEN Health Network " It could be pronounced that way, or it could just be the B-I-E-N, I'm not sure. Ortiz: Bien. Burnet: Bien, okay. Over to you. Ortiz: In September 1998, a working committee formed of librarians, of which I am one, educators, and healthcare specialists became the force behind the project we call "BIEN." The Border Health Information and Education Network, and the Spanish word for "well." The vision of this small group of people was to enable residents of a medically under-served area in southern New Mexico to obtain electronic access to badly-needed health information. Representatives from 17 partner institutions in a three-county area met monthly to lay the groundwork for the eventual BIEN project. The mission of the project was to create opportunities to improve the health behaviors of the residents of the U.S./ Mexico border region. To accomplish this mission, the BIEN project would provide increased access to quality and reliable health information, in English and Spanish, for consumers, health professionals, and educators. But how to accomplish this mission was a very large question. A grant proposal was eventually researched, written, and submitted to The National Library of Medicine in the summer of 1999. In the meanwhile, a dog and pony show on the proposed project was presented at a local border library conference. It was through this presentation that the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation of El Paso heard about the project and invited BIEN to submit a grant proposal to them. If funded, it would allow BIEN to conduct further studies, which would help us launch the larger National Library of Medicine project. Fortunately, the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation did fund the project for $10,000. We were able to pay the salary of the part-time project coordinator and the focus group consultant, and provide mileage reimbursement. In addition to the needs assessment conducted in the early planning stage, the coordinator and the consultant conducted one-on-one surveys and focus groups, which provided us with a collection of data and statistics. In late Spring 2000, we received word from the National Library of Medicine that the BIEN proposal had been funded. Because this was a one-year project, our top priority was to hire the project librarians and begin to create the infrastructure which would enable us to accomplish our mission. We were very lucky to find two librarians locally, who had the background and experience necessary to conduct a large-scale project with little supervision. Unfortunately, it took four months into the project to bring them onboard. Because New Mexico State University was the lead partner of the 17 members, we had to use the procedures and the protocols in place. And some of you, I know, understand the bureaucratic network we had to work through in order to get this accomplished. September through December 2000 were spent researching and buying needed technology; receiving it and delivering it; conducting further surveys; researching local Internet service providers and library databases; locating vendors from whom we would eventually buy library materials and initiating those orders, and most critically, creating what we felt would be the most prominent and long-lasting feature of the project, the BIEN Web site. In late January 2001, we launched the much anticipated Web site, and soon after started our series of "Train the Trainer" workshops. These workshops would incorporate training in Spanish and English, on using the Web site, as well as the electronic databases. Each partner had identified a cadre of trainers who would then be available to provide outreach and training to their particular clientele. For example, librarians would provide training to library users, promotoras would provide training in Spanish to clients in the barrios, and physicians would use the training to increase their own skills. That same month we applied to the National Library of Medicine for a time only extension of the project. It was clear, by then, that we could not accomplish our goals in the months left. We continued building the resource centers at each of the sites, not only with books and videos, but with a large variety of pamphlets and brochures available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. We selected nearly everything that was printed in Spanish, since a large portion of the population we were trying to serve were Spanish-speaking only. What made this project unique? Our goal was to help residents of southern New Mexico become more self-sufficient in locating health information, which would: a ) improve their health, and b) give them the confidence to ask questions of their physicians. In order to accomplish this goal, we would provide hardware, databases, library resources, and we would conduct "Train the Trainer" workshops for all the partners. We were a partnership of 17 members: libraries, clinics, hospitals, and state agencies. Given that there were 17 quite different and unique partners ranging from very small libraries to the local office of the State Department of Health, to a large hospital, the level of cooperation and understanding and teamwork exhibited throughout the project was just incredible. What problems did we encounter? We've been told not only by our liaison at the National Library of Medicine, but by other, more experienced grant coordinators, that this project was far too ambitious to be accomplished in one year. This was the first time most of the partners had worked on a grant. We had high hopes, we were very motivated, but we had little experience. Because the project depended on hiring the two librarians, we were four months into the grant before we could really begin, and nine months into the project before we actually began to do any training. So, too much to do in too little time. The next big hurdle was the failure to recognize the importance of marketing and how to go about doing it. Our initial plan was that each of the sites would do their own marketing; after all, they knew their clientele and could best encourage the use of the resources. What we didn't realize early enough was that we needed a major marketing campaign, which would make use of radio, television, newspapers, of schools and senior citizen's centers, youth clubs and organizations, and social service agencies. When we did make this realization, we had to find funds within the grant structure, since we had no marketing budget. We had to contact marketing consultants, work with them to create the idea, and eventually disseminate the final product, which was a bilingual poster promoting the Web site. If you'll stop by Poster 35, The BIEN Project, you'll see a miniature version of the English-language poster. We weren't able to bring the full-size posters, because they are rather large. And the last big difficulty was the failure to obtain continuing funding to carry on the project. We began to seek out further grant possibilities somewhat late in the project year, due to the withdrawal of our anticipated funding source after the stock market decline last year. What would we do differently? All three of the above: either increase the time table for the project, or develop a less enthusiastic for a year; write marketing into the proposal, and start immediately, and three, begin researching multiple funding possibilities as soon as feasible. Were we successful? Absolutely, yes. Our mission was to create opportunities to improve the health behaviors of the residents of the U.S. / Mexico border regions. And to accomplish the mission, the BIEN project would provide increased access to quality and reliable health information, in English and Spanish, for consumers, health professionals, and educators. We established resource centers at each of the partner institutions. We disseminated hundreds of brochures and pamphlets and our new poster. We distributed state-of-the-art computer equipment to each partner, and provided access to the Internet and electronic databases in the health sciences. We trained the trainers at each site and other sites that heard about our program and wanted to play a part. These were not original partners. We participated at two health and wellness fairs, and we sponsored a booth and the United States / Mexico Border Health Conference in Las Cruces that was held at the NMSU campus. We created and continue to maintain a very professional Web site, and we supply photo or digitized copies of the articles requested by our clients that weren't available locally, through an arrangement with a regional medical center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. And we conducted strategic planning workshops to assure the continuation of the project. How will we continue
the project? The Web site is being maintained by the [Donyana] Branch
Community College, one of our partners. Continuation of Internet access
for a number of sites that didn't have it originally is being provided
by funding from the New Mexico Department of Health and the Border Health
Education Commission in Las Cruces. And training is being provided by
member librarians. The project, now, is being coordinated, in the interim,
by the NMSU and the DABCC libraries. Burnet: Thank you very much, Sylvia. Just - struck me as worth saying, it is nice to see people critique their own work in public in that way. It provides such a valuable insight, and it's not something that many people do, so I specifically commend you, Sylvia, telling what went wrong as well as what went right. Bielak: Thank
you Frank. Burnet: Sorry. I even rehearsed. [laughter] I'm going to get your name wrong for certain. It's my pleasure and much rehearsed privilege to introduce to you, Alex Bielak, of Environment Canada - and this is the bit that's tricky - The Ashkui Project: Knowledge, Culture, and Landscape. Over to you. Bielak: Thank you very much. I was going to say that I knew I couldn't compete in the footwear department. I suspected I couldn't compete in the voice department, but I thought I had him beat on the ties, but - We were told yesterday that we should try to link the talks to what had gone before, so we had a very inspiring talk first thing in the morning about communicating science. We heard about dinosaurs, so I thought I'd just share this with you. [cartoon on screen] Thank you very much
for the words of introduction. I want to take just a very brief moment
to thank Rick and Gail for inviting me here today, and I think on behalf
of all the people who've been fortunate to participate in this very generous
and excellent conference, I'd like to say thank you. Given the topic that I'm dealing with today, I do want to mention, two of my colleagues in the audience, Paul Hemphill, and particularly Geoff Howell, who so closely involved in the development of the Ashkui Project. It was his project, and I'm trying to marry to two posters that we have given here today over the last while, and as you know, one is on the Ashkui Project, and I'll come to that particular topic a bit later, and the other one is on the development of the Communications Workshop by Environment Canada. During the Communications Workshop, which was a pilot workshop, there were a couple of presentations which were particularly pertinent to the discussions here today. One was on science communications and communities, and we've heard some very good talks about that already, and the second one was about communicating science in northern Aboriginal communities. And the theme of both was, in very large measure, about why communication by scientists should be "in" communities and not "to" communities. Also, on the need to establish relationships with those that one was communicating with. And interestingly enough, I can across a reference to an EPA study. The EPA went out and tried to see what it was they could do in increase the acceptance of their science, and I think they were not pleased to discover that people didn't feel any sense of relationship to EPA and didn't really feel very much about their science, either. And I think in that regard, it's critical that we recognize that people are looking for a relationship. They don't really care about the quality of the science, as we heard from Joe, but they do want to have that sense of relationship with the provider of the information. It's critical for scientists who are communicating science to get out into the communities that they serve and understand them. Understand really well. Understand their needs, wants, desires, and while some are great proponents of science communicating via the media, they should certainly not be perceived as hiding behind the media. The truism is that communities want to hear it from the horse's mouth and not feel as with if they're getting it from the other end. [laughter] Now, another very real theme of the Environment Canada Pilot Workshop, was the need for cultural awareness, and as a Canadian citizen, I live this every day. We're a bilingual nation, and the fact that we operate in French in a large part of the country, and English for the major part of the country, leads to very different linguistic and cultural differences that we have to be aware of. And they require adjustments in strategies, processes and messages that we deliver. No where is that more true than when we're dealing with Canada's first nations, our Aboriginal communities. It was interesting to me that during the Pilot Course, we heard from an 85-year-old matriarch. We heard the story of her standing up during a public meeting where scientists had been presenting and she said, basically, "You stupid, stupid scientists. You don't know nothing about anything." And what she was railing about was that the scientists had come in and were giving the benefit or their wisdom, and weren't acknowledging that there was something called "traditional ecological knowledge." It's the "god from above" syndrome. You fly in, you tell people that you're the expert, you have the knowledge, this is what shall be done, you go and do it, maybe hire a couple local people, swan off in a plane, and you're probably never heard from again. Then publish your paper, which may then come back to haunt a community in some hearings of something. So, what Marie Rose Waikman wanted was an understanding - and she got it - was an understanding the traditional ecological knowledge was incredibly important, and it was tremendously important to be able to set Western science within the context of that framework. So, in working with Aboriginals, one must be particularly sensitive to local customs and traditions. Particularly so when dealing with elders. Elders are cherished, valued and respected members of the community and have a tremendous influence over the community. They have wisdom. The have accumulated knowledge, which is treasured. So, the importance of understanding the value and place of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEC, as we call it, is an absolute key in being able to communicate science effectively within those communities. So, I was really pleased to be a very minor part in Geoff's project. We brought quite closely together before I moved to my present job - and I know many of you have been wondering, "What the heck in an "ashkui," and it's not a pharmaceutical plant, as somebody suggested to me yesterday. They're to the Innu, who live in northern Quebec and Labrador, something which is tremendously important. They're cultural landforms. They are the first open water areas in the spring, and as an Innu elder explained it to us, he said, "They are our supermarket. They are our pharmacy. They are our everything." I just want to give you a couple of very short slides to put things in perspective. We're dealing with Labrador, this little bit here with the straight line, which Quebec says doesn't exist. We take this part of the country, it's over 55% of the land mass, and it's inhabited by about 20,000 people, about half of whom are natives. It also happens to be an area about which western science, particularly, Environment Canada, knew very little about. So, the project looked at various open water sites in the spring and a variety of spots on a basic north, south transit, and to give you a bit of an idea on that, I'm going to show you three very short video clips, about 90 seconds in case Frank is actually counting. Just to give you a sense of the sort of area that we're dealing with, and it's, I think, quite important that you see that. Okay, there we are. Thank you. [video clip, aircraft noise] This is flying into the camp - our Star Wars bit, here. You can see, some of the folk are awaiting the arrival of the plane. This will give you an idea of the area. That is wind. It was very cold and this camp that you have just seen is built specifically for the purposes of the meeting. I'll come to the meeting in a moment. Majestic landscape. Very beautiful. Swinging round, you'll see a lake which is about 90 miles north of a town called Goose Bay, and we're just coming up to where the Ashkui, itself, is. It's the first open
water area in the spring. We were up there about the first week of May. This is in the women's tent with Spruce boughs, which we learned how to lay. I was discussing the post-[INAUDIBLE] results with the natives. There's a native co-researcher there Jack Selma, explaining what's happening. I'll close this one down this time rather than running it again. And the Ashkui, as I say, are very important for a variety of reasons. They're really wildlife magnets. In this last clip, you can see the geese flying across there. Upwards of 1,000 geese; that becomes quite significant in the context of national defense jets, which like to run low-level flights over this lake and then realize that, perhaps, they might want to ignore Ashkui in the future. So, what are the best practices and the take-home messages here? I am finishing. As you've already seen in the poster, I hope, and if not, I welcome you to come and stop by and take a look at it. A key element was building trust in the community, and the research team, itself, and those that they co-opted into partnerships from other agencies were absolutely key in this, in that they adopted the approach of not doing the seagull act and leaving, but really becoming embedded in the community. So, how did they do this? They rented an apartment in the community, instead of staying at hotels, for the full year. And they'd go in and be a permanent part of - a fixture within the community during the field seasons and coming in for other meetings. People would drop in for a cup of tea and a say. They set up the meetings on the land, as I said, that camp was specifically built so that meeting was not in a boardroom setting. Somewhere that their native elders, of whom there are about eight at the camp, together with something in the order 13 western researchers, would feel comfortable. I can't say that I slept quite as soundly as in my feather bed, but they certainly felt comfortable and opened up to great discussions. From the outset, Geoff involved a co-researcher in the project, and that individual became key in translating the scientific knowledge back to the Innu elders and back to the Innu community. Whilst we learned from him, he was also mentoring and learning about western science. There were regular
reports back to the community, and the results were always presented in
a way that the Innu could understand. That's not to say there weren't
some high-tech developments, we've got little CDs with the poster, on
here. There were CDs developed for the community with research projects. Oh, thank you. My gorgeous assistant, thank you. That's a poster on
linen, and the Innu elders would traditionally carry their maps into the
countryside with this. And so, we're adopting technologies and using technologies
that the Innu could use and understand, and that poster will be going
up to Goose Bay at the beginning of May. So, the approach taken truly
is, I think - it's a wonderful project, and it's a great example of scientists
communicating "in" rather than "to." Burnet: Thank you very much, Alex. I almost made a natural billboard. We haven't got very long for questions. I'm sorry, let's go straight into it, I think, rather than try and make any deeply wise introductory remarks. Please, any questions you have for any of the panel. [INAUDIBLE] Question: You mentioned that you were advertising a Web site, and I was wondering if that [INAUDIBLE]. Ortiz: Yes, as a matter of fact, the survey that we did shows that Hispanic users were more - was used more, and that they were more pleased with the Web site that English-only speaking users. Burnet: Other questions? Borchelt: I think that's a thank you very much. It's a thank you very much. We're going to break now for lunch. It is very, very important that we be back in the room at 2:00, because our keynote speaker needs to be able to leave on time, at 3. So, please be back here at 2. Created:
7/13/02
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