Promoting Science Communication with Children’s Literature as a High-Impact Practice (HIP) Assessment

• Main Authors: Sarah E. Ruffell, Tommy Mayberry
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2019-09-01
• Series: Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
• Subjects: science communication; High Impact Practices (HIPs); Writing and Multimodal Communication; Assessment; Children’s Literature
• Online Access: http://jmbesubmissions.asm.org/index.php/jmbe/article/view/1759

To emphasize the importance of public outreach and science communication within STEM, and to foster in students a greater appreciative understanding of the scientific content within their courses, the Science Library Project has students creating children’s books about key course content. At the end of this project, the student writer-publishers are able to display their critical and creative work as they collaborate with local teachers in a networked conversation about science and multimodal communication. This innovative pedagogical approach to assessment is important both inside and outside of the Sciences because it participates in High Impact Practice (HIP) pedagogy to have students invest a significant amount of time and effort over an extended period of time as they participate in frequent, timely, and constructive feedback and, most importantly, have the opportunity to discover the relevance of their learning through real-world applications in the public demonstration of their book projects. This practical paper shares our approach to creating and implementing the Science Library Project that activates written and visual communication modes to motivate Science learners to engage with course concepts in deeper and creative ways.