Abstract:

Public outreach (or Scientific outreach) is understood as any scientific communication that directly engages an audience outside of academia. The main goal is to promote public awareness and understanding of science and making informal contributions to science education. There are distinct types of outreach activities, for example public presentations, visits to primary and secondary schools, workshops, and science fairs.

Outreach programs offer the possibility to scientists receive inputs from public about their research, including the existence of new perspectives, the refinement of current proposal, and the stimulation of new inquiries. Towards effectiveness in public outreach, it is important to understand the public to reach in order to select the appropriate instrument, for instance by applying global or local strategies. Public outreach must have an associated process of development, implementation, and evaluation, being then conducted with rigor.

Outreach participation can vary accordingly to the job profile and stage, such as professors, researchers, undergrad and graduate students. The main motivation to participate in outreach programs is associated to the commitment to society, by the desire to disseminate science, to increase social inclusion and to encourage careers in science. Other motivations are to enjoy the outreach experience itself, to improve communication skills, to have a positive emotional experience, and to become a better person.

There has been a demand from educational leaders to have academia as partners to reform education through outreach programs, mainly due to the relevance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. STEM education is a strategy to gather a workforce with deep technical skills to address challenges in our society. In this trend, public outreach programs have been developed to make children/youth understand the relevance of STEM, to increase their knowledge about STEM concepts, to provide positive impact on their attitudes toward STEM fields.

In this paper we present the findings of a three-year project called “Women in STEM”. It is a public outreach program developed in an Engineering institute and sponsored by a renowned health-care company. The project goal is to contribute to STEM education focusing on female students. We then address two main challenges: STEM education itself and the gap in female participation in STEM. The female cause is important to cultivate talents and to ensure their entering in workplace, contributing to reach diversity in STEM areas and consequently creativity and innovation.

We investigate the benefits of participating in this outreach project, discussing what move professors and undergrad students to contribute and which are the gains driven from their performance. We structure the benefits in four main areas: commitment to the cause, possibility to develop transversal competences, possibility to improve technical competences and career, and personal motivations. We also comment the gains for the overall institute to support this outreach project, as well as the possible barriers to participation.

Keywords:

Public outreach, STEM, Education, Female, Motivation, Benefit.