Scientific Talks Research Articles

The Role of Joking for Learning Science: An Exploration of Spontaneous Humour in Two Physics Education Settings

Abstract Talking science is based on the premise of being serious and dignified. Still, both teachers and students use humour when they communicate. However, little is known about the mechanisms of how learning science is constituted when teachers and students are using spontaneous humour in science classroom activities. In this study, we acknowledge this gap. We have analysed video data using practical epistemology analysis (PEA) from two different contexts in physics education, a physics classroom in grade 9 and a group of undergraduate students learning basic mechanics together. The findings showed that spontaneous humour, such as absurdities, supported the learning process in two ways: (1) orienting talk and action towards the scientific purposes of the assignments and (2) sorting out what scientific content and norms were/were not of relevance in the situation. The results illustrate how the participants made jokes to clarify how reasoning and actions tallied with the task at hand. These humorous situations positively affected students’ ability to act intentionally towards the aim of the activity, and the results show that this way of joking can have positive consequences for student learning. Therefore, humour ought to be viewed as a significant resource for learning in the science classroom. Doing science can, like any other activity, be a humorous endeavour in itself, without cartoons or extravagant shows.

Using popular science talks to foster interest in Economics among high school students

The declining interest in Economics majors in many countries among high school students and the lack of diversity of undergraduates in this field have recently become a source of concern for the academic community. In contrast with previous research examining nterventions to increase the interest in Economics mostly involving impersonal communication, this work, using a sample of Spanish students, explores the impact of popular science talks targeted at upper-secondary education pupils. Our results suggest that this intervention involving personal interaction with students effectively draws the attention of high school learners to Economics. Although there seems to be no difference in its impact according to the students’ characteristics, the greater diversity of the pupil population in secondary education compared to higher education suggests that this intervention might enhance the diversity of the pool of young people studying Economics.

A building block for science talk: Educational TV supports parent-child conversations during an engineering activity.

We investigated the impact of parents' open-ended questions during collaborative science activities. Specifically, we randomly assigned 116 parents (69.8% mothers; 89.7% White) and their 4- to 7-year-old children (50.9% girls; 87.9% White) to watch science television before or after completing an engineering activity. Using sequence analysis, we examined the conversational exchanges elicited by parents' open-ended questions. Two patterns emerged: knowledge elaboration sequences occurred when children formulated science explanations, and knowledge gap sequences occurred when children revealed their lack of knowledge. Watching science television before (vs. after) the engineering activity promoted knowledge elaboration sequences but had no impact on knowledge gap sequences. These patterns did not vary according to children's age. Collectively, our results offer empirical support for the notion that parents' open-ended questions elicit two types of responses from children during collaborative science activities. Furthermore, our results suggest that science television might serve as a conversational support during those activities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The Eighth Agria Conference on Innovative Vehicle Technologies and Automation Solutions, InnoVeTAS2024

Even though the last few years were filled with all kinds of challenges for companies and universities; we are happy to host once again, the Eighth Agria Conference on Innovative Vehicle Technologies and Automation Solutions, also known as InnoVeTAS2024. This conference series was started as a subset event of the International Pneumobile competition, in order to make it more attractive to students and professors from a wide range of universities in Europe. Today, the InnoVeTAS conference has become an independent scientific forum, which is traditionally held in May. This being the eigtht conference in the series; our event has become one of the major technical and scientific talks in Heves County! Additionally, we are now visible on the venue of Hungarian national conferences! In cooperation with IÓP Publishing, this year’s conference proceedings will also be the third time, that it will have been listed in the Scopus index, which is useful for high level researchers. List of Honorary chairs, Scientific Committee, Editorial Committee, Organizing Committee, Invited Speakers, Organization Institution and Sponsor are available in this Pdf.

The science-specific home learning environment of elementary school children – how are science experiences and science talk associated with the children’s science achievement?

ABSTRACT Background The home learning environment (HLE) is central to children’s development. Activities in the HLE are assumed to mediate the effects of distal factors such as family socio-economic status (SES) and parental beliefs and attitudes on children’s development. However, little is known about the science-specific HLE and the relationship between different parent-child science activities and elementary school children’s science learning. Purpose This study aims to investigate a) how different science activities in the HLE relate to children’s science achievement and b) how they mediate the associations of family SES and parents’ beliefs and attitudes on children’s science achievement. Sample Data from the German subsample of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 was analyzed, including 3,437 4th-grade children (Mage = 10.39 years, 50% boys). Design and methods The study has a cross-sectional design. We used structure equation modeling (SEM) to examine associations and test for indirect effects. Results We identified two different patterns of science activities in the HLE: science experiences (e.g. reading science books, experimenting) and science talk. SEM revealed that science talk was associated with children’s science achievement, whereas science experiences were not. Further, science talk mediated associations of family SES and parental beliefs and attitudes on the children’s science achievement. Conclusions Our results might indicate that discursive elements in science activities, such as parent-child science talk, are crucial for children’s science learning, whereas a mere provision of science experiences may not adequately foster the children. We suggest that future research should focus on analyzing the quality of parent-child interactions in different science activities to understand possible learning processes in these activities better. Overall, although effect sizes were small, our results emphasize the crucial role of the HLE for elementary school children’s science learning.

The European Landscape of Institutional Publishing

NOTE: Download from this platform not possible at the moment due to a technical problem. Meanwhile, please visit to https://soundcloud.com/opensciencetalk to stream the episode. This episode of Open Science Talk deals with Diamond Open Access publishing services provided by instutitions. The EU-funded project DIAMAS (Developing Institutional Open Acces Publisihing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication) has recently published a 240-page landscape report on «Institutional Publishing in the E[uropean] R[esearch] A[rea]; results from the DIAMAS survey». Work Package leader Jan Erik Frantsvåg discusses the main findings of the report together with Sona Arasteh, co-author of a synopsis of the same report, comprising 30 richly illustrated pages. In the discussion, the landscape report and its synopsis is contextualized alongside an earlier study on the global landscape of Diamond Open Access Publishing; on-going projects such as DIAMAS’ sister projects CRAFT-OA and PALOMERA; and plans for capacity building for Diamond Open Access Publishing on global, regional and national levels. Digital recording, unfortunately with problematic sound quality. First published online: Feb 13, 2024.

Cueing Scientific Explanations: A Social Semiotic Perspective on Framing during Science Instruction in the Elementary School Classroom

Reforms within science education strive to shift early science instruction (K − 2) so students have ample sense-making opportunities to construct scientific explanations. Classroom discussions play a key role in supporting these endeavors. This requires that classroom discussions are shaped in ways that foster scientific instruction and learning. In this study, we take a social semiotic perspective on Goffman’s notions of frames and participation framework to explore how a first-grade teacher accessed and supported his students’ scientific explanation construction within whole-class discussions. Our research questions ask how scientific explanations are framed during science discussions and how this framing influences student scientific explanations and participation in science talk. Evidence suggests that the teacher’s framing resulted in miscues regarding the frame and participation framework necessary to participate in the discussion. When students encountered these miscues, their participation was thwarted and opportunities for articulating scientific sense-making were lost. Implications for this study identify the importance of semiotic resources for framing science instruction during classroom discussions and the architecture of interactional spaces.

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

WORKSHOP “NOVELTIES IN UNDERSTANDING THE EVOLUTION OF BINARY STARS”

In February 2023, the Ural Federal University (Ekaterinburg, Russia) hosted a seminar “Novelties in Understanding the Evolution of Binary Stars”, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the founder of the Ural science school of researchers in close binary systems, Professor Marij Anatolyevich Svechnikov. 17 scientific talks were given at the workshop, united by their interest in the problems of stellar binarity.

The glue that makes it “hang together”: A framework for identifying how metadiscourse facilitates uncertainty navigation during knowledge building discussions

AbstractClassroom discussions have become a centerpiece of reform efforts in science education because talk mediates the joint co‐constructing of knowledge in science classrooms. Although decades of research underscore the importance of talk in supporting science learning, the science education community continues to grapple with how to support teachers and students in navigating the uncertainty that is associated with doing knowledge building work. To address these challenges, we must examine not just what gets constructed (the scientific ideas), but how knowledge is co‐constructed by teachers and students (the process of building those ideas) amidst uncertainty. In this study, we propose a conceptual tool for identifying organizational, epistemic, and interpretive metadiscourse markers (MDMs) in science talk. We highlight how teachers and students use these three types of MDMs as they navigate uncertainty while connecting ideas within and across multiple turns of talk, leveraging resources for knowledge building, and making interpretations about one another's ideas. We conclude with a set of suggestions for how researchers and teachers can utilize this framework to attend to the ways that MDMs index the organizational, epistemic, and interpretive dimensions of uncertainty in the knowledge building process.

“Wissenschaft fürs Wohnzimmer” – 2 years of weekly interactive, scientific livestreams on YouTube

Abstract. Science communication is becoming increasingly important to connect academia and society and to counteract misinformation. Online video platforms, such as YouTube, allow easily accessible communication of scientific knowledge to audiences made up of the general public. In April 2020, a diverse group of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, launched the YouTube channel called “Wissenschaft fürs Wohnzimmer” (translated to “Living Room Science”) to stream scientific talks about climate change and biodiversity every Thursday evening, with the aim to reach a broad range of members of the public with a general interest in science and climate. Here we report on the numbers and diversity of content, viewers, and presenters from 2 years and 100 episodes of weekly livestreams. Presented topics encompass all areas of polar research, the scientific and societal aspects of climate change and biodiversity loss, and new technologies to deal with the changing world and climate of the future. We show that constant engagement by a group of co-hosts and presenters representing all topics, career stages, and genders enables the continuous growth of views and subscriptions, i.e. a measurable impact. After 783 d, the channel gained 30 251 views and 828 subscribers and hosted well-known scientists, while enabling especially early-career researchers to foster their outreach and media skills. We show that interactive and science-related videos, both live and on-demand, within a pleasant atmosphere, can be produced alongside the main research activity by scientists, while also maintaining high quality. We further discuss the challenges and possible improvements for the future. Our experiences will help other researchers conduct meaningful scientific outreach and push the boundaries of existing formats towards a better understanding of climate change and our planet.

We need to talk science

We need to talk science

Memories of David Cox attending scientific talks

Journal Article Memories of David Cox attending scientific talks Get access Vernon T Farewell Vernon T Farewell MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Address for correspondence: Vernon T. Farewell, MRC Biostatistics Unit, School of Clinical Medicine, Cambridge Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge CB2 0SR, UK. Email: vern.farewell@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6704-5295 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society, qnad070, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrsssa/qnad070 Published: 30 May 2023 Article history Received: 28 March 2023 Accepted: 22 April 2023 Published: 30 May 2023

Resources to support, engage, and recognize ACS local sections

Are you a local section leader looking for ways to increase engagement, kick-start a new program, or find a speaker for your next event? The American Chemical Society’s Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC) is here to help. LSAC supports local sections in their efforts to engage members and promote chemistry literacy in their local communities. ACS Speaker Directory Earlier this year, LSAC launched the ACS Speaker Directory, a resource that lets leaders of local sections and technical divisions find a wide range of speakers for in-person, hybrid, and asynchronous events. Users have access to more than 500 speakers who are available to present technical science talks, provide career development and professional advancement presentations, explore general interest and popular science topics, and more. Use this service to find your next speaker. Access the directory at acs.org/speakerdirectory (ACS ID and login required). LSAC is actively recruiting speakers to join the directory.

Smartphones and parent-child conversations during young children's informal science learning at an aquarium

Smartphones and parent-child conversations during young children's informal science learning at an aquarium

Fair Housing: A Blueprint for Equity in Life: Proceedings from the 2022-2023 High School Big Data ChallengeUnder the patronage of Canadian Commission for UNESCO

In the STEM Fellowship High School Big Data Challenge, students have the opportunity to engage in independent research projects and acquire fundamental data science skills – an essential skill set for a young researcher in the digital age. The program is inquiry-driven and experiential. This year, we invited students to explore issues of Fair Housing at the Individual and Community Levels and to suggest their own evidence-based solutions, using Open Data and the principles of Open Science. Students explored many topics, ranging from a New Framework for Public Rental Housing in Toronto to A Statistical Analysis on Thawing Permafrost and Its Effects on Housing. We designed in-depth learning modules for students as a means of bridging the gap between traditional high school courseware and digital reality and computational science. Students learned how to uncover hidden patterns and trends in structured and unstructured data using a range of data analytics tools and programming languages. Python, R, LaTeX, and machine learning were some of the tools the students learned and used. On behalf of the STEM Fellowship, we extend our sincere congratulations to all students who participated in the challenge, and wish them the best for their future endeavours. We want to express our appreciation to all the mentors and volunteers. This program would not be possible without patronage of CC UNESCO and generous support of our sponsors: RBC Future Launch, Let’s Talk Science, Digital Science, Infor, SCWST, CISCO Networking Academy, Canadian Science Publishing, and the University of Calgary Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking. We were privileged to witness first-hand the analytical capabilities of the data-native generation of students, and we are confident they will demonstrate excellence throughout their academic and professional careers.

We need to talk

We need to talk

Using Wearable Sensors to Measure Interpersonal Synchrony in Actors and Audience Members During a Live Theatre Performance

Studying social interaction in real-world settings is of increasing importance to social cognitive researchers. Theatre provides an ideal opportunity to study rich face-to-face interactions in a controlled, yet natural setting. Here we collaborated with Flute Theatre to investigate interpersonal synchrony between actors-actors, actors-audience and audience-audience within a live theatrical setting. Our 28 participants consisted of 6 actors and 22 audience members, with 5 of these audience members being audience participants in the show. The performance was a compilation of acting, popular science talks and demonstrations, and an audience participation period. Interpersonal synchrony was measured using inertial measurement unit (IMU) wearable accelerometers worn on the heads of participants, whilst audio-visual data recorded everything that occurred on the stage. Participants also completed post-show self-report questionnaires on their engagement with the overall scientists and actors performance. Cross Wavelet Transform (XWT) and Wavelet Coherence Transform (WCT) analysis were conducted to extract synchrony at different frequencies, pairing with audio-visual data. Findings revealed that XWT and WCT analysis are useful methods in extracting the multiple types of synchronous activity that occurs when people perform or watch a live performance together. We also found that audience members with higher ratings on questionnaire items such as the strength of their emotional response to the performance, or how empowered they felt by the performance, showed a high degree of interpersonal synchrony with actors during the acting segments of performance. We further found that audience members rated the scientists performance higher than the actors performance on questions related to their emotional response to the performance as well as, how uplifted, empowered, and connected to social issues they felt. This shows the types of potent connections audience members can have with live performances. Additionally, our findings highlight the importance of the performance context for audience engagement, in our case a theatre performance as part of public engagement with science rather than a stand-alone theatre performance. In sum we conclude that interdisciplinary real-world paradigms are an important and understudied route to understanding in-person social interactions.

A Corpus-based Study of Stance Adverbs in TED Scientific Talks

As an important part of interpersonal communication, stance adverbs are used to express the speakers’ opinions, attitudes and style of delivery. However, stance adverbs in spoken registers have not received enough attention. This study analyzed the stance adverbs in TED scientific talks, with a particular focus on the most common certainty stance adverb really. This research is based on a self-built corpus composed of 80 TED talks in science and technology categories from 2017 to 2022, with a total number of 161,523 words. The findings indicated that epistemic stance adverbs, particularly certainty adverbs, were the most frequently employed category. The results also revealed that speakers of TED scientific talks tended to adopt really in the medial position in the clause. Meanwhile, really was mainly used to emphasize and express factual truth. The purpose of this study is to complement the existing research on stance adverbs in the spoken registers and provide suggestions for public speaking in academic discourse.

Science workshop activities were held within the scope of TÜBİTAK science talks

Science workshop activities were held within the scope of TÜBİTAK science talks