Science Friday Radio Program and Social Community Start/end dates: August 2009-July 2011 Program Officer: Sandra Welch PI: Ira Flatow Program: Informal Science Education
The goal of this project is to extend the impact of the nationally broadcast weekly radio program, Science Friday to a new, young audience through the various new cyber-space platforms and interactive tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Second Life as well as new emerging social networking tools. The STEM content over the course of the two year project will include a wide variety of topics in all disciplines. The relationship between art and science will also be a focus.
The NPR radio broadcasts currently reach 1.3 million listeners every week, and that audience is expected to increase. In addition to that audience, this project will target a new audience of adults under the age of 35 using various cyber platforms and new social networking tools such as Second Life, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Audiences will also be reached through remote broadcasts from science centers and art centers around the country. Over 30 science centers will use this project's web content on their own web sites, reaching their audiences as well. The web content will be translated into Spanish and widely disseminated to Hispanic audiences.
Each Friday afternoon, Ira Flatow, the PI will produce and host the nationally broadcast Science Friday radio program interviewing scientists and engineers in a lively engaging format. In addition, the Science Friday digital media team will be producing and inviting others to create and post digital content and commentary on the Science Friday web site for further dissemination through Second Life, Facebook, as well as other emerging networking platforms.
The evaluation will use a quasi-experimental design to study the appeal of both the radio broadcasts and the cyber-platforms with both older and younger audiences. Proposed audience impacts include increased STEM knowledge, interest, and behaviors.
Partner organizations include the Self Reliance Foundation, the New York Hall of Science, LA Theatreworks, and Tribeca Film Festival.
If you want to learn about the impact science has on your life, tune into the Science Friday radio program, visit the Science Friday Web site, and check out our Facebook page. A two–year grant from the National Science Foundation (2009 – 2011) to Science Friday has made possible: 1) the 19th and 20th years of broadcast of Science Friday, the live news/talk show about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that is broadcast every week to more than 300 public radio stations on NPR. In addition to underwriting the radio program, the NSF grant also funded: 2) a redesign of Science Friday’s Web site, www.sciencefriday.com, to make it more navigable and interactive; 3) expansion of the Science Friday Web site’s STEM content in the form of 85 popular new SciFri Videos, as well as many new Spanish-language videos and articles about science; 4) expansion of the radio program and the Web site’s unique focus on science in the arts; 5) creation of 48 free, online, inquiry-based STEM lesson plans for middle school, based on SciFri Videos; and 6) evaluation of Science Friday’s radio broadcast and online components. Recent research has found that people learn most of their science outside the classroom. Science Friday has played a big part -- informing the public about science in an informal way. Now in its 21st year of live broadcast, Science Friday, featuring much-loved host Ira Flatow in conversation with his expert guests, is an entertaining, effective, and informal way to learn about STEM for the 1.4 million who listen weekly to the live broadcast and the millions more who listen via podcast or the Internet. Science Friday’s radio program remains unique because its call-in format allows listeners to speak directly with guests (or submit questions for them via Facebook, Twitter, or the show’s Web site, www.sciencefriday.com). Independent evaluation of the program’s effectiveness shows that listeners regularly seek out more information about the topics they’ve heard about on the show. Thanks to NSF support, we have been able to make Science Friday available at little or no cost to stations that cannot afford NPR’s carriage fees. In this way, we have been able to ensure that people who aren’t regularly exposed to STEM continue to receive news and information about it. Science Friday is one of NPR’s most popular programs in broadcast and in podcast: it regularly ranks among iTunes Top 25, and in the top five podcasts in the science/medicine category. We have developed mobile applications for the iPhone, Android and iPad platforms that allow people to listen to Science Friday podcasts and view our SciFri Videos wherever they find themselves. Radio programs that want to reach new, younger listeners must build a complementary Web presence, which we are doing through our new interactive Web site that will be unveiled in fall 2011. Our goal is to encourage our audience not to limit their science to Friday. Our new motto is: Every day is Science Friday. To catch the attention of younger audiences as well as broaden our impact, we’ve expanded our broadcast and online coverage of science and the arts. Besides on-air stories, new content appears every week on our dedicated Web site: www.sciencefriday.com/arts. In the past year, the number of visitors to www.sciencefriday.com/arts has risen 125 percent. We’ve also greatly increased our production of Spanish language multimedia content that we feature on Ciencia Cierta, www.sciencefriday.com/spanish. If you’re a Spanish speaker, Ciencia Cierta brings you news stories and videos that focus on science facts, rather than opinion. Science Friday also cultivates active communities of science enthusiasts and fans of the program in popular social communities. Science Friday has more than 147,000 followers on Twitter and more than 30,000 on Facebook. Additionally, Science Friday is unique among public radio broadcasts in that it always has offered an online education resource at no charge. Are you a teacher, a homeschooling parent, or a student who is looking for STEM enrichment activities? For you, Science Friday has produced Teachers’ TalkingScience, free online science lessons targeted at middle school and each based on one of our popular SciFri Videos. Teachers’ TalkingScience attracts more than 1,700 visitors a month and individual lessons are downloaded in the range of 500 to 1,500 times annually. You can find Teachers’ TalkingScience at www.talkingscience.org/teachers.
