Choose Your Own Adventure: Designing an Environment that Supports NASA Scientists’ Goals in Education, Outreach, and Inreach

Abstract:

What is your communication goal? That is the opening question asked in NASA’s first agency-wide science communication leadership development program. Many scientists know what they want to communicate, some know to whom they’d like to communicate, but few can clearly express why they want to do it. So what? First, being clear about one’s goal is critical in being able to measure success. Second, when asked to think critically about communication goals, some scientists may shift their communication behaviors and practices to better achieve those goals.

To that end, NASA has designed a deep learning experience for scientists (and engineers and others) to: critically examine their communication goals; learn techniques for getting to know their intended audience; and develop and apply specific communication skills to a project of their choice. Participants in this program come into the classroom with projects that span a wide spectrum including: formal and informal education, public outreach, media interviews, public speaking, stakeholder briefings, and internal awareness-building. Through expert advisors, professional coaches and peer networks, this program provides a supportive environment for individuals to workshop their project in the classroom and receive feedback before, during, and after the project is complete.

This program also provides an opportunity for scientists and other participants to learn more about communication at NASA, and to directly influence the agency’s science communication culture through action learning. In this presentation, I will summarize NASA’s dual-design science communication leadership development program and present some lessons-learned, participant feedback and evaluation data from the initial course offerings.