ENGAGING THE PUBLIC IN THE GEOSCIENCES

The Outreach Department of the American Geological Institute (AGI) has a mission to promote understanding of the geosciences to the general public. AGI fulfills this mission through a variety of programs and through partnerships with its member societies, federal agencies, formal and informal science education groups and through the private sector. AGI has discovered over the years that it is important to use a multi-faceted approach in engaging the public in the geosciences. Depending upon their ages, experiences, language facility and preferred learning modalities, some people respond more readily to highly visual approaches, while others prefer the written and/or spoken word.

To address these needs, the suite of AGI programs includes a mixture of styles and approaches. Examples include the annual Earth Science Week event with its accompanying Toolkits of materials; DVDs, such as the latest effort based on the Nine Big Ideas of the Earth Science Literacy Principles; television broadcasts; commercial film ancillaries; web sites and Earth magazine. The session will explain AGI's rationale in choosing particular approaches for various audiences, as well as the metrics used to measure program effectiveness.