Communicating ecological issues with the public

Despite the fact that I'm only a graduate student, I've already participated in public outreach events designed to increase public understanding and interest in biology. The benefits of such activities are clear to me, so Pace et al. (2010) was an easy sell. I suppose there are a number of "old guard" ecologists out there who do not appreciate this other aspect of being a scientist, and perhaps they are the target audience for this article. I found the ideas presented by Groffman et al. (2010) more interesting, though I think they were less effective in making a case for their arguments.

The authors discuss the relationship between the public and science by using climate change as their primary example. I wonder if this is the most fruitful approach. What about other, less politicized, ecological issues (eutrophication, loss of biodiversity, habitat fragmentation, pesticide resistance, etc.)? Furthermore, not all ecologists study climate change. The authors did not have to choose a single ecological issue to structure their paper around, and I think their case would have been stronger if they had used multiple examples of current challenges in environmental science.

The authors stress the importance of communicating with the public in new ways (e.g., new models, frameworks, tools) but they ignore a major shortcoming of how science is communicated. They state, "...most people learn about science not through formal schooling, but through informal sources, such as the media...". If the purpose of formal schooling is not to teach the public about science, then what is it for? The authors suggest that the solution to this problem is to reach the public via these informal sources. While this is probably a useful pursuit, it completely ignores the root of the problem. We are failing to teach the public about science while they are in school.

I hope the effort that is being put into finding more effective ways for scientists to communicate with the public is at least matched (but ideally exceeded) by efforts to improve science education in our schools.