Spotlight on Outreach and Engaging the Public with FOEP’s 2017 Dwight Nicholson Award Winner

Q. What do you find most exciting about outreach? Most rewarding? Most difficult? Most important?

It’s a duty. I do outreach not because I want to but because, given the needs of society, I would be irresponsible if I did not. I’d otherwise rather stay home.

I know I have succeeded when people understand an idea or physical concept enough to take ownership of it. At that point, they can have an argument with others that makes no reference to me at all. If they end up saying “This is true because Tyson said so!” then I know I have failed as an educator.

For me the greatest challenge is getting people interested in science who are sure that they don’t like science, or that science was never for them. Often that outlook is the consequence of bad or ineffective science teaching in school.

Another challenge is interacting with talk show hosts in ways that serve their specific audiences. So I force my delivery, vocabulary, conversational energy, and demeanor to adjust to the moment. Otherwise, with only one delivery style, you are square information trying to fit into a round media hole.

Q. How much outreach do you do globally (i.e. outside the US)?

My latest book, Astrophysics for People In A Hurry, is currently in 40 languages, including Dutch, Norwegian, Catalan, and Arabic. The 2014 Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, which I hosted, aired in 180 countries. So I’d like to think that counts as global outreach. My public talks, other than an occasional excursion to Australia, are almost entirely domestic.

Q. Have there been any measures made on the impact of the Hayden Planetarium, and if so what were the results?

The simplest measure is attendance. And the Museum has had multiple years of record attendance since the new Rose Center for Earth and Space, containing the rebuilt Hayden Planetarium, was opened in 2000. And though the space shows are key draws for visitors, Hayden’s impact should also be measured by the activities of our personnel, especially those in the Museum’s educational department, who plan and schedule hundreds of programs and activities each year, bringing science to the public in many and varied ways, and for all ages.

On the impacts of your Cosmos show, results? (I know I’ve suggested my cosmos students to watch it, and I myself have been viewing it.)

The Cosmos TV series, which I had the privilege of hosting in 2014, and will do so again for the 2019 release of season three (the first of which was the 1980 series by Carl Sagan) is technically a multipart documentary on the universe, but that’s not what you feel when you watch it. The persistent juxtaposition of history, culture, meaning, and emotion instills within you an entirely different relationship to the universe — one where you are not an observer but a participant in the great unfolding of cosmic events. This potency relative to most documentaries cannot be overstated. And that is the legacy of the series, with Ann Druyan as the cowriter for all three incarnations of the franchise.

Q. What advice would you give to others trying to do outreach on a large or small scale?

Think about how other people think. Think about all the tangled mental roadways of confusion that may lurk in their minds, especially given today’s incessant exposure to misinformation on the Internet. Find their receptors for learning, and feed them. Without that investment of pedagogical energy, you are simply lecturing to your audience, facing away from them as you write on the chalkboard, when you could otherwise be communicating with them.