Language science outreach through schools and social media: critical considerations

As researchers who rely on (and are grateful for!) public funding and community participation to produce scientific knowledge, we are responsible for returning that knowledge to the community in ways that empower them. Our lab’s science outreach effort has several aims: to disseminate information about language development and accurate information about sensory impairments to the public, to introduce language science to future scientists, to improve public interpretation of scientific results3, and to encourage traditionally underrepresented groups of young people to participate in science by illuminating the wide diversity of scientists and the fields they study. We post short videos on TikTok and Instagram, and for longer-form information, we write informal articles on our blog.Because negative attitudes about STEM abilities begin early in childhood, we designed an after-school program for kindergarten through second graders at local public schools. Plainly, we want kids to appreciate their brains for all the complex knowledge they’ve learned just by learning to talk, without even thinking twice about it. We want them to catch a glimpse of science not just as a set of academic topics, but a creative process full of questions and, often, failure. .The hardest part of this work was the assessment—how can we be confident our message landed, especially in young children? We used the Draw a Scientist Task, which asks whether children produce sensationalized or stereotypical images of scientists before and after our after-school program. Students’ drawings were significantly less sensationalized and more representative following our program. In this article, we explore missteps, difficulties, and successes, and discuss opportunities for improvement to future outreach.