How do we tell the history of science?

A session at the Science Communication Conference 2015, Manchester
Friday 19 June, 11.00-12.15

• Sites and resources on history and science communication
• Taught courses on science communication involving history
• The panel
• About this session
• Send questions in advance!

Sites and resources on history and science communication

• The H-word is the most widely read British-based blog on the history of science and medicine, as part of the Guardian Science Blogs network. Since its launch in 2012 it has covered topics including controversies about hero figures, the importance of institutions, publishing and expectation, gender and science, and medical fads and fantasies.
• Horizon at 50 is a set of resources put together by the BBC to commemorate the 1964 launch of its flagship science documentary series. Tim Boon, Head of Research and Public History at the Science Museum, discusses its origins and importance.
• The BSHS Strolling Players, an outreach project of the British Society for the History of Science, combines costumed performance with discussion sessions, aimed at schools and family audiences, on past scientific and medical controversies: plague in the seventeenth century, body-snatching and the physical reality of the spirit world.
• Science Places is a set of audio guides and written directions for walking tours around sites of scientific history in Manchester and Liverpool. The Manchester tour, developed in 2007, is delivered in the voice of the nineteenth-century chemist John Dalton, who describes his own life and times alongside later developments.
• Drinking Up Time is a comic monologue/lecture “with time travel” based on one historian’s work on scientific and medical investigations of drink since 1600, offering a pub-audience-friendly take on such once-vital questions as “Is wine alcoholic?” and “Does rotting fish belong in beer?”
• Whewell’s Gazette is a weekly round-up of new online writing on the history of science, technology and medicine – including many blogs aimed at general audiences – which appears on the Whewell’s Ghost blog.
• The Ships, Clocks and Stars site, accompanying the 2014 exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, is still active and contains public resources based on research and collections work around the Longitude Project.
• Voices of Science is a major collection of 100 “life stories” based on oral history interviews with notable figures in the history of the environmental sciences, technology and engineering in Britain.
• Science and Education is an academic journal focusing on how insights from history, philosophy and the social sciences can be used to improve teaching and learning in science and mathematics at all levels.
• The iCHSTM 2013 public programme page lists the numerous events for general audiences which accompanied the 2013 International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, the largest event ever organised in the field.
• Brains: the Mind as Matter is a resource site built for a 2014 exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, developed from a Wellcome Collection exhibition and featuring artefacts sourced through local research, spanning science, history and art, which help to demonstrate Manchester’s contribution to understanding the brain.
• Constructing Scientific Communities is an academic research project tracing the nineteenth-century antecedents of ‘citizen science’, looking at how scientific experts relied on data and specimens collected by often skilled, but officially non-expert volunteers.
• TrowelBlazers is a biographical project to recover the lives and work of female contributors to archaeology, geology and palaeontology through time, through short articles and historical photos.
• Victorian Science Spectacular re-creates the popular science lecturing styles and technologies of the nineteenth century, with magic lantern shows, phonographs, and electrical spark demonstrations.

The panel

• Rebekah Higgitt (University of Kent) is a historian of science and a former curator at the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory, Greenwich. She co-created the Guardian H-word blog, maintains her own blog on the history of science and public audiences, and makes regular public and media appearances. She was part of the collaboration which created "Ships, Clocks and Stars", a research-based exhibition on the eighteenth-century longitude project featuring several satellite public events.
  The H-word | Teleskopos (personal blog)
• Jack Kirby (Museum of Science and Industry) is Head of Collections for MOSI in Manchester, and currently has responsibility for strategic planning of collections services across the national Science Museum Group. He is closely involved in the intensive redevelopment of MOSI’s public galleries, and presents regularly to a range of audiences on the past, present and future of science in the Manchester region.
  Brains: the Mind as Matter
• Tom Lean (British Library) is a field interviewer for the Oral History of British Science project. He conducts detailed career history interviews to chart the development of British science and technology since 1940, specialising mainly in engineering fields such as power generation, computing and aeronautics. Some of his most interesting discoveries involve the childhood experiences which lead people to become engineers. He is also a former BSHS Strolling Player and is currently writing a book on British computing for general audiences.
  Voices of Science
• Katherine McAlpine (National Maritime Museum) has a background in public and schools engagement. She was Public Engagement Officer for the "Ships, Clocks and Stars" exhibition on eighteenth-century longitude investigations at the NMM, and worked to cross-promote the current commemorative NESTA Longitude Prize. She has previously worked at the Royal Institution and Natural History Museum.
  Ships, Clocks and Stars | NESTA Longitude Prize
• Fern Elsdon-Baker is the principal investigator for the "Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum" project and leader of the associated research group at Newman University. She previously worked for the British Council, firstly as head of the Darwin Now anniversary project, then as director of the Belief in Dialogue Programme. She focuses on the communication of evolutionary science, theories of inheritance since 1800, the role of ‘science’ or ‘worldviews’ as identity markers and in public space ‘clash narratives’, or prejudice formation, and perceptions of evolutionary theory within faith communities. She is currently Recorder for the History of Science section and on general committee for the British Science Association.
  Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum
  
• James Sumner (University of Manchester) is a historian of technology with interests including computers, beer-brewing, and local industry and technical education. He is the creator of Drinking Up Time and a former BSHS Strolling Player, and regularly presents on history at venues such as the SciBar network and Science Showoff. He has developed various guided walks, sometimes in association with the Museum of Science and Industry, and is one of the developers of the new Master’s programme in Science Communication at Manchester.
  Drinking Up Time | Science Places

About this session

Researchers in the history of science, technology and medicine work increasingly with public audiences. Their involvement with science communication is growing in two ways: as a source for collaboration with practitioners, and as a field of historical study. This discussion session will allow practitioners to find out more about current historical projects and discuss challenges and opportunities such as the following:

• how can we connect with audiences who would not think of themselves as “interested in science” by looking at the roles of science and technology in wider social history?
• how can historians’ experience in surveying and archiving memories (particularly through oral history), sites and practices help in explaining what “doing science” is really like?
• historians traditionally distrust simple stories, hero figures, and accounts which celebrate science. Does this create unavoidable problems – or can it help in realistic engagement with audiences?
• how can present-day science communicators apply research on the history of science communication itself? Do communication approaches developed to suit past aims and audiences become relevant again as policies and constraints change?
• and what can history (and the wider humanities) learn from techniques pioneered for STEM fields?

The session will begin with brief presentations from the panellists, each of whom will outline a particular case study or give a response to the session themes. The rest of the session will be given over entirely to open questions from the audience.

The session organiser is James Sumner, University of Manchester.

Taught courses in science communication involving history

• University of Kent: MSc Science, Community and Society has been co-developed by specialist historians of science in the School of History with colleagues in the School of Biosciences.
• University of Manchester: newly launched for 2015, MSc Science Communication is run by the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine and draws on history, museology, and innovation studies.
• University College London: MSc Science, Technology and Society combines history, sociology, policy and governance, and science communication and engagement studies.

Send questions in advance!

If you have a question for discussion which you would like the panel to think about, you're welcome to send it in advance: email or tweet the session organiser at @JamesBSumner.