ODTÜ Science Cafe Promotion Film

Date

2017

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Science, culture, and art museums, newspaper articles, short films easily accessible on the internet, or documentaries with large budgets are among the first things that come to mind. Another effective method used in recent decades to bring science to the public is science cafes. The first science cafe, focusing on philosophy, began in France in the 1960s and continued in the UK in the 1990s, encompassing other branches of science. Through the activities carried out within this framework, scientists have stepped out of their offices and laboratories to share their science with the public in cafes. These interactions are as interactive as possible, allowing people of all ages, from 7 to 77, to ask questions directly to the subject experts. In fact, not only the speakers but also the listeners provide answers to these questions. Similar events are organized in our country as inter-semester seminars by various universities, including METU (Middle East Technical University). These events are mostly conducted as short courses in university lecture halls. More recently, METU has changed this approach among universities in Turkey and started organizing science cafes in public places by visiting different cities with their professors under the name of "METU Science Cafe". In these events, accompanied by coffee and attended by listeners of all ages, interesting topics that concern society are explained in plain language. The first attempt of METU Science Cafe was a lecture by Professor Korhan Özkan on "Drought" in Mersin. In the subsequent stops of METU Science Cafe, our professors, together with Yeşim Soyer, discussed "Palm Oil" in Eskişehir, Bilge Demirköz addressed "Space Radiation" in Antalya, Adil Oran focused on "Entrepreneurship" in Adana, Raşit Turan shared insights on "Solar Energy" in Cyprus, and Aslı Bugay discussed "Exam Stress" in Izmir, bringing these topics to the public.

Subject Keywords

Bridging Science with Society, Science cafes, Simplifying Complex Questions

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104350

Collections

METU Bellek, Multimedia