Meeting Abstract
Initiating and sustaining dialogue between scientists and the public remains difficult and ineffective. The resulting disengagement of the public from “real science” has proven detrimental: Media and political organizations have seized the opportunity to distance science from other disciplines, inaccurately portraying science to the layman. However, education innovation trends have supported the embracing of the intersections of creative and critical thinking as a means of successfully engaging “resilient minds.” Here, I present an overview of the Bird-Feeder Project which I developed to enhance communication and dissipate the “otherness” of science; I make the shared principles of the arts and sciences physically and intellectually available to the public as a way of showing how science complements well-established ways of understanding. In the vein of free libraries and poetry bins, combinations of student-produced poetry and scientific abstracts are paired based on overlapping themes or shared ideas, printed on decorative bookmarks, which are free for the public’s taking, and placed in brightly colored birdhouses specially designed for the project. For example, one of the most popular bookmarks displays the pairing of a poem describing romantic heartbreak with a research abstract detailing the link between depression and cardiovascular disease. The birdhouses’ proximity to local hot spots, such as cafes and libraries, maximizes exposure to diverse readers. I incorporate the work of local high school and university students as the primary feed used to construct poem-abstract combinations and recruit my peers to edit and disseminate the birdhouses.
