Experiential Learning in Science Policy
Originally Posted: December 1, 2023
Our second stop on the Catch Up Tour is about the paper I published in 2022 about experiential learning in science policy. In Fall 2021 I took a Science Policy course that had two major components. The first was a project with the US State Department where we got hands on diplomacy experience. The second was a more traditional classroom experience where we learned about the ins and outs of science policy and diplomacy.
As a sort of final project for this second part of the course, we participated in a Model UN style simulation called the Mercury Game. The idea was that we had to pretend to be diplomats from various countries trying to negotiate a treaty on international mercury use. Thus, by the end of the course we had engaged in lots of experiential learning, that is, "learning by doing."
Following the course, a number of us got interested in understanding how experiential learning could be used to teach science policy and diplomacy. This interested us because in general there is very little science policy and diplomacy education around the country. Very few institutions have dedicated classes, let alone dedicated programs. Most courses that do exist are usually a subset of a different degree, or focus on one particular aspect of policy, like space or medicine.
We wondered if what our class did could be a model for teaching science policy and diplomacy around the country. And so, we wrote a paper about our experience! After doing background research on how science policy and diplomacy were currently taught, the limitations to teaching it, and how students in our class responded to the experiential learning model, we concluded that experiential learning tools would be an excellent way to make science policy and diplomacy instruction available to more students.