For Dr. Frederick Bartley, subtle connections exist between the world's seemingly disparate peoples. That connection underpins both his own understanding of science and his strategies as a science communicator and educator. He is affectionately known as “Dr.” B” Bartley is president and CEO of the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio. The center is currently celebrating his 60th anniversary as a brick-and-mortar museum in the heart of the city.
A Harvard-educated immunologist who spent his college years researching vaccines for HIV and AIDS, Bartley's reputation for leadership in science education extends beyond the White House to the wider world. At a time when distrust of science in the United States is on the rise, fueled by partisan rhetoric around COVID-19, Bartley's approach to resolving science trust issues is a radical common sense approach with a Renaissance spirit. That's one.
In an interview with Salon, Bartley talked about his and COSI's roadmap to making scientific understanding more accessible to diverse groups. Bartley's methods include connecting the arts and humanities to science communication for the general public, reshaping classroom practices, and harnessing the natural intelligence of all ages to help people understand seemingly complex topics. It involves showing how much you know.
Dr. Frederick Bartley, a leading science educator and science communicator, will introduce rocket science to young White House visitors during the 2023 annual Easter Egg Roll. (Anna Trankina/COSI)
STEAM — Let's talk science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Although the term is typically seen in youth education contexts, bringing the A to science communication seems to make science more accessible to knowledgeable adults as well. For example, when culturally attuned media audiences are exposed to hard science, there is often a disconnect that can be bridged with an arts-focused lens. How does A in STEAM impact the accessibility of science on your side?
First of all, communication. You need to find a common vocabulary. So if you're a plasma physicist or an organic chemist, you're working on this weird little molecule that no one else understands. wonderful. It won't work for the general public. Whether you have a university degree or a PhD in history, you need to find a common vocabulary.
“For us, they are closely related. The best scientists are completely creative.”
The transition from STEM to STEAM is now popular. I mean, there are a lot of people in his scientific STEM field who are adding an A because they want to get funding and so on. Then there are those who are working hard to add STE because they want to say they are connected. Don't get me wrong, some people do it better, but generally it's more like, “Oh, I'm just nodding politely to the other person.” And COSI does not take that approach.
And why do we do science? Why does science and its cousin engineering exist and create technology? 99.9% of the time it's to improve the human condition, right? Harnessing fire to cook our food so we can live longer, coming up with medicines to save our loved ones, and developing these devices that live in our pockets will move humanity forward and help us This is an effort to bring them closer together. Well, nothing does that better than art.
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That's why I go see Gauguin, Matisse, and Basquiat. That's why I want to understand fabrics, textures, colors, and learn about history. For us, they go hand in hand. The best scientists are totally creative, right? For us, STEAM is real. That's how we navigate the universe. That's how we spend our days.
When it comes to COVID-19, it is clear that this will not be the last pandemic. And we've seen so many flaws exposed in fast-paced journalism and how science is communicated in the media. But scientists and informants now face a further lack of public trust, fueled largely by political disinformation campaigns among anti-science factions.
Scientific nihilism existed before the pandemic, and it existed in all societies and in all proportions. But the pandemic just took that scientific nihilism and added rocket fuel to it. The reason is that you've had this strange time. We are an outgrowth of the Black Lives Matter movement, and other social movements are also becoming more active. The world has shut down due to the pandemic, things are tough, you may be out of work and not feeling well. And things are becoming politicized. It was a classic mashup of unbelievable events, literally everything happening at the same time. .
“Scientific nihilism existed before the pandemic…but the pandemic just added rocket fuel to it.”
In other words, when you overlay politicization, people get angry because they connect it with real life. As a result, science denialists rose from 5% to 15% of the population to 50%. Certainly along partisan lines, and even across in other areas.
But the medical community and the scientific community, in general, haven't stepped forward and said, “Hey, it's a new bug. We don't understand it. We don't understand it.” We have no immunity to it. We learn as we go. we will make mistakes. Although we cannot say for sure, we can promise you that science is a process of accumulating data and getting closer to the truth. ” We didn't do that.
Can you talk about the way forward for creating clearer and more useful science communication and engaging the public, and even students, in ways that re-establish trust?
Education is important, but it has to be with a consistent pulse… So how do we get a consistent pulse when it comes to science and STEAM literacy? And the final point: we have to teach it better. It means that it must be done. You have to tie it into something that people can relate to.
So how do we teach the intricacies of our beautiful natural universe in a way that connects people to a vocabulary they understand, to things that are meaningful to them? People will feel more at ease about science and less afraid of the big black box that is scientific data.
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