Models & Programs - Community Science Initiative

The following models and programs provide a window into Dialogue & Deliberation, a set of methods for engaging community members and policymakers to identify or refine community priorities and support decision making around difficult or complex science and technology topics. These examples are drawn from both within and outside of the science center and museum field.

Models of Dialogue & Deliberation

The use of Dialogue & Deliberation is well established in civic engagement and participatory democracy spaces, and many models and frameworks already exist for how to design and implement these types of programs. Additionally, science engagement professionals have developed frameworks for public dialogue aimed at a science engagement context. We have highlighted here a few examples of models and frameworks that science centers and museum professionals can use for inspiration and adapt to their local contexts.

RVAir

Science Museum of Virginia is working with community members in Richmond to collect local air quality data and create solutions to their local environmental health challenges.

Throwing Shade in RVA

In Richmond, VA, the GroundworkRVA Green Team explores the drivers of urban heat islands (paved, dark surfaces) and their solutions such as green infrastructure like native plants, using infrared cameras and thermometers.

Civic Engagement Scorecard

A rating tool that lets the public provide input about different kinds of meetings, processes, town halls, festivals, and online activities.

Taking the Conversation Virtual: A Primer on Moderating Online Discussions

Foundational practices for translating your knowledge of in-person discussions on community issues to the virtual world.

Keeping People Connected

A nuts-and-bolts toolkit for engaging residents in problem-solving, decision-making and community-building from Public Agenda.

Youth Focused Citizen and Community Science

The Center for Community and Citizen Science at the University of California, Davis, supports multiple initiatives to engage youth.

Youth Climate Program

The Wild Center’s Youth Climate Program is a youth-led initiative that works to convene, engage, connect and empower young people around the world to take action on climate change through summits and convenings.

World Wide Views

A global effort to engage the public on pressing issues such as global warming, biodiversity, and climate change and energy, with the goal of informing international and national policymaking.

Wolves in Colorado: Science & Stories

The Wolves in Colorado: Science & Stories is a six-part webinar series in which the Institute for Science and Policy explores wolf reintroduction and its relation to science, policy, and lived experiences.

Examples of Programs and Initiatives

Browse this inspiring set of program examples to learn more about Dialogue & Deliberation in practice at the local, national, and global scale.

RVAir

Science Museum of Virginia is working with community members in Richmond to collect local air quality data and create solutions to their local environmental health challenges.

Throwing Shade in RVA

Civic Engagement Scorecard

A rating tool that lets the public provide input about different kinds of meetings, processes, town halls, festivals, and online activities.

Taking the Conversation Virtual: A Primer on Moderating Online Discussions

Foundational practices for translating your knowledge of in-person discussions on community issues to the virtual world.

Keeping People Connected

A nuts-and-bolts toolkit for engaging residents in problem-solving, decision-making and community-building from Public Agenda.

Youth Focused Citizen and Community Science

The Center for Community and Citizen Science at the University of California, Davis, supports multiple initiatives to engage youth.

Youth Climate Program

World Wide Views

A global effort to engage the public on pressing issues such as global warming, biodiversity, and climate change and energy, with the goal of informing international and national policymaking.

Wolves in Colorado: Science & Stories

Views, Opinions and Ideas of Citizens in Europe on Science

VOICES was a year-long project funded by the European Union that had the goals of gathering public opinion on the topic of urban waste and providing insight about the process of engaging the public in research agenda design.

The National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center

The Policy Research Center of the National Congress of American Indians works under the guidance of a national advisory council to inform public policy debates with meaningful data and to assist in shifting the discourse in Native policy from a problem-focused approach to a framework of truly proactive, future-thinking strategy development.

The Global Hack

The Global Hack is a global initiative that unites the Hack the Crisis movement and the more than 40 hackathons organized as part of this movement.