MSI SciTech Chicago Outreach Pilot Exploration (MSCOPE)
The University of Chicago's Center for the Presentation of Science (CPS) teaches graduate students how to present scientific results in science museums. The students are trained in and participate in the presentation of scientific knowledge to a broad public. The University of Chicago collaborates with with the Museum of Science and Industry and SciTech in a team including a faculty or professional-scientist coach and graduate students from many disciplines, including: physical science, computer science, and social science.
The MSCOPE program is a pilot project of the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry and SciTech Hands-on-Museum in Aurora, Illinois, aimed at bringing the CPS science and scientists to the broader Chicago area, focusing on soft condensed matter and cosmology in particular. The goals and objectives of both the CPS and MSCOPE include:
- Enabling the presentation of science, including both the results of up-to-the-moment scientific research and basic science, to a broad public.
- Teaching graduate students about the presentation of Science, especially the conceptual design of museum exhibits.
- Helping museums more effectively present scientific material, especially using computerized methods.
- Developing new career paths for students.
- Expanding museums audience base, especially in attracting additional under-served audiences.
- Building greater diversity in the groups taught by the physical sciences division of the University of Chicago.
- Building a working collaboration that can be replicated. In MSCOPE, each year a team of Chicago graduate students from several different disciplines would spend nine months working and learning together.
Project leadership and administration: Professor Leo P. Kadanoff, (Director and PI) and Dr. Ronen Mir, Executive Director, SciTech Hands On Museum (Co-Director).
Co-PI's: Prof. Leo Irakliotis, Computer Science, University of Chicago and Prof. Morris Fred, Social Sciences, University of Chicago.
The overall effort is being pursued under the sponsorship of the MRSEC (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center) and the CfCP (Center for Cosmological Physics), both National Science Foundation-supported Centers, and in addition the Computation Institute (CI), the High Energy Physics group, and the Masters program in the Social Sciences at Chicago.
