Meeting Abstract
Science communication is linked to basic research in ways that are increasingly appreciated by the scientific community, funding agencies, and the public at large. Our lab has harnessed the remarkable phenotype of weakly electric fish for informal public science education, with the main goals being to increase participants’ understanding of ecological biodiversity and bioelectric signaling, and positively broaden their ideas of science inclusion and accessibility. Here, we report on seven years of outreach and engagement activities. We have designed a modular traveling program, “The Electric Fish Roadshow” which can be adjusted to target several different groups and settings including elementary individual classrooms, K-12 school wide science fairs, senior citizen groups, and public lectures. We use representatives from several Gymnotiform and Mormyrid species to lead participants through interactive demonstrations and inquiry-based experiences that show the biodiversity of electric fish species, adaptations and animal life history, and demonstrate the electrogenic properties of participants’ own bodies. The laboratory has visited 15 sites, engaging with over 850 people. Assessments show significant increases in participants’ understanding of biological diversity, increased positive attitude towards science, and increased traffic to our outreach webpage. Future improvements will include updates to our demonstration materials, expanding the demographic and geographical reach of the demonstrations, continuing to build classroom curricula at the state level, and development of stronger quantitative assessment methods.
