- You are just beginning your civic engagement work or beginning civic engagement on a new topic,
- You want to support and uplift existing efforts in your community,
- Your institution can help share or clarify key scientific information to inform an issue under community consideration,
- You have the capacity and resources to facilitate community conversations about a local topic of concern where input is needed.
Connecting Science to Civics
As a science center or museum, you are already facilitating science learning with community members. You can take this role further by adding a civics angle to existing exhibits, educational materials, or programs to help community members understand how key decisions are made, especially on topics related to your institution’s existing content. Additional interpretive materials could connect an exhibit’s scientific content to current local events, relevant policy discussions, or civic actions visitors can take. For example, many museums feature rain gardens in their landscaping and could provide information on which local, state, Tribal, territorial, and federal agencies’ jurisdictions are responsible for protecting clean waterways, and how to advocate for solutions that reduce stormwater runoff.
Science engagement organizations can also play an essential role in combatting scientific misinformation and disinformation around civically relevant science topics. Topics that are related to daily life, and those that are more difficult to independently fact-check, are more vulnerable to mis- and dis-information. Many issues that fit this description exist at the intersection of science and society. Providing people with scientifically accurate information before they encounter mis- and disinformation is often the most effective way to prevent it from taking hold, so proactively choosing to engage in potentially controversial topics related to health, climate change, and artificial intelligence can serve a legitimate civic purpose, especially when paired with local contextualization and calls to action. Science engagement organizations can also get ahead of mis- and disinformation by providing education about how to find legitimate sources and how to verify information found online or elsewhere. This can also involve teaching people about the methods commonly used in misinformation in order to make these tactics less impactful, a practice sometimes referred to as “prebunking.” For mis- or disinformation that has already taken root in a community, working with trusted community members to share fact-based information can help counter it.
- Learn more about combatting misinformation: Tackling Misinformation by Claire Wardle of Brown University, is a brief article about identifying and addressing the needs of your community around misinformation.
- Learn more about addressing disinformation: What You Can Do About Disinformation from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a hub for various resources about how disinformation works, how to identify it, and how to effectively respond to it.
- Learn more about getting out ahead of misinformation: A Practical Guide to Prebunking Misinformation, produced in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, BBC Media Action, and Jigsaw, is a guide to why, when, and how you can use preemptive measures to “inoculate” your community and prevent misinformation from taking hold.
Civic engagement in action
Co-Creating Community Solutions for Misinformation
Colorado residents gather at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to discuss problems and solutions around misinformation and trust in local journalism.
Misinformation is not a new concept, but as access to information grows, so do opportunities for false information to spread across society and the media. The Institute for Science & Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science partnered with the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) and the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation to bring together community members to discuss the impacts misinformation has in their community, and actions for journalists to take when reporting local stories. The two-part Dialogue & Deliberation series brought together more than 50 individuals from across the state to first discuss their concerns and viewpoints, and then co-develop a discussion guide for how communities and news outlets can best address these concerns. The guide includes four approaches readers can take to address misinformation in their community, potential actions for each approach, and additional concerns and tradeoffs.
Catalyzing Democratic Participation with Voting
Science engagement organizations can foster a culture of civic engagement by showcasing opportunities and encouraging participation in the voting process among community members. In many places, voting is one of the most basic ways citizens can engage in their local decision-making processes, and your institution can help more people exercise this right. This can include utilizing your institution’s physical space to host voter registration events or polling. Your science center can also provide a space for local civics experts to meet with community members and educate them about local democratic processes and opportunities. You may even consider providing ballot education resources to help community members participate in decision making and advocate for their interests. If you have concerns about your institution’s perceived role when advocating for increased voting, you may consider consistently integrating information about how to register to vote and exercise voting rights in your exhibits, educational programming, and outreach activities. By communicating the importance of voting year-round and locally, not just near major elections, your voter education may be perceived as less contentious.
- Learn more about election advocacy for nonprofit organizations: Election Do’s and Don’ts for Nonprofit 501(c)(3) Organizations from Afterschool Alliance is a short list of what advocacy activities nonprofits can and cannot engage in while retaining their 501(c)(3) status.
- Learn more about hosting a voter registration drive as a nonprofit organization: Want to Conduct or Fund a Voter Registration Drive? from Alliance for Justice is a fact sheet with a clear list of what you should and should not do when running a voter registration drive at your nonprofit.
- Learn more about requirements for serving as a polling place: Polling Place and Vote Center Management from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission describes requirements for polling places, from determining whether your organization might be eligible, to detailed checklists to help ensure your polling place meets required standards.
Highlighting Existing Local Efforts
Science engagement organizations can actively support existing local civic engagement efforts, such as connecting visitors to volunteer opportunities, participating in local council meetings, or serving on local boards and commissions. They can also host events that showcase local engagement opportunities, like volunteer fairs where local nonprofit organizations, community groups, and advocacy organizations provide information about their missions, volunteer opportunities, and ongoing projects. You can also host events that spotlight local issues and invite community organizations and advocates to present information and potential solutions. Topics could range from affordable housing and transportation to public health and climate resilience. These events provide a platform for community members to learn, ask questions, and engage in meaningful dialogue with local advocates working to address community priorities; they can also discover ways to get involved in their community whether it’s through environmental conservation, social justice initiatives, or education programs. Further, you can create exhibits and programming that highlight and incorporate local civic groups and their initiatives. For example, a hands-on exhibit could simulate the impact pollution has on local waterways or demonstrate how urban planning can create sustainable communities. By incorporating local data, stories, solutions, organizations, and leaders, exhibits can raise awareness and inspire action among visitors. By doing so, science engagement organizations become hubs that connect community members with impactful pathways for civic action.
In addition to on-site, in-person events and exhibits, science engagement organizations can harness the power of asynchronous community building to foster civic engagement. Online events, such as webinars, virtual town halls, and discussion forums, provide accessible platforms for community members to engage with important civic issues from the comfort of their homes, schools, or even places of employment. Virtual gatherings allow for broader participation and reach, enabling individuals who may face barriers to attending in-person events to contribute. Listservs, message boards and forums, and other digital spaces also serve as valuable tools for facilitating ongoing communication and collaboration among community members. They provide opportunities for sharing resources, exchanging ideas, and organizing collective action. You can curate and moderate these online communities to ensure constructive dialogue and meaningful engagement. By embracing asynchronous community building strategies, science engagement organizations can enable individuals to contribute to civic action at their own pace and convenience, ultimately facilitating more inclusive and participatory civic spaces.
Civic engagement in action
Student-led Science Advocacy
Facilitating Community Conversations
In many cases, the first step toward meaningful civic change is connecting community members to share their perspectives on an issue, and—in some cases—come to decisions about what actions should be taken. These kinds of facilitated conversations are a good tool when the topic or issue can be clearly articulated, the solution is not yet agreed upon, and broader community input is needed. Although this toolkit’s focus is civically oriented conversations, you may find useful guidance and related resources in ASTC’s Community Science Dialogue & Deliberation Toolkit. If possible, you should engage community members from the start, so they can cocreate the event with you by helping select, define, and frame the topic of the conversation, develop goals, create the agenda and participant list, and more.
The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC facilitated workshops exploring solutions to extreme heat events.
When inviting participants to community conversations, pay special attention to community power dynamics. For example, consider which groups in the community are (or will be) most directly impacted by the issue at hand to ensure the conversation centers justice, as discussed in “Choosing Community Partners.” You may also want to include decision makers who can impact the desired outcome, as this can help clarify what influences their decisions, and offer an opportunity for community members to communicate with them directly. However, community members may feel intimidated and be less forthcoming in their presence and having decision makers view earlier and less-polished work could affect your credibility. If you do want to involve decision makers in the conversation, you may want to conduct or revisit your power mapping exercise (see “Critical Preparations for Civic Engagement”). You may also consider hiring professional facilitators, especially when there is significant conflict between groups, many complex issues to cover, or a misalignment between the lived experiences of those leading a convening and those participating. You can read more about these considerations in the Dialogue & Deliberation Toolkit’s Facilitating section.
As you design your community conversation, keep accessibility, equity, and justice at the center. Ensure that all desired participants can attend, based on the location, timing, food availability, childcare, transportation, and any other accessibility needs relevant to your community, such as translation or interpretation services. Other design aspects should be chosen based on the meeting’s goal, the participants involved, and their relationships to one another. For example, if you are holding a meeting where the participants are already familiar with each other, and the goal is to come to an actionable decision, you may want to spend relatively little time on icebreakers and introductions, and more time discussing detailed and specific questions. For a meeting where participants are relatively unfamiliar with one another, in which the goal is to increase mutual understanding, the opposite would be true. As you design your meeting, also consider what the deliverable(s) should be at the end, what goals you would like to address, and who will complete any action items.
- Learn more about why to hold a community conversation and how to best design it: Convening Design 2022 by The Rockefeller Foundation is a guide discussing when and why to hold a such a conversation (which they term a “convening”) and how the event goals should influence its design.
- Learn more about the basics of planning a successful community conversation: Gather: The Art & Science of Effective Convening by Candid Learning is a guidebook with practical tips, including design principles, key questions, and critical issues, to help you customize an event for your context.
- Learn more about planning meetings that center difficult, complex discussions: Road Map to Better Decisions from the Institute for Science & Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a guide that outlines a process for having difficult conversations around complex issues.
- Learn more about facilitating conversations about climate change and community action: Climate Conversations is a guide from ASTC’s Seeding Action Initiative, which contains specific advice about how to leverage the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) as a starting point for community conversations about climate change.
- Learn more about dialogue and deliberation events: The Dialogue & Deliberation Toolkit from ASTC is a guide for another of our five Community Science Approaches, which offers advice and resources for designing facilitated conversations.