Required Courses
Science Communication and Public Discourse
100 Units
Communicating science and translating research to public audiences presents particular challenges. Based in rhetorical theory and analysis, this course prepares students to create and deliver oral, written, and digital communication to a public audience. Centering on theory and research identifying best practices, the course engages students in inquiry, interrogation, research, and testing of how to communicate complex and/or contentious scientific information to various audiences. Readings will include theory and analyses, including emerging research in effective public engagement of science. Written, oral, and digital assignments will provide students opportunities to practice, build, and hone capacities to translate research and engage the public with science.
Instructor(s): Ekaterina Lukianova
Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Equivalent Course(s): PARR 13700
Science Communication: Writing a Digital Science Story
100 Units
Students will gain skills in written and digital communication, focusing on translating primary scientific research to a general audience. Students will learn what makes an engaging written article and how to write for the public without sacrificing scientific accuracy or complexity. We will explore platforms such as newspapers, magazines, blogs and social media. Students will work with faculty mentors to complete two written pieces that communicate research findings and their significance to a general audience. Student articles may be disseminated on the websites of the Illinois Science Council, Marine Biology Laboratory, the Institute for Translational Medicine, or the National Institutes of Health. Students will walk away with a polished, published work.
Instructor(s): Sara Serritella and Steve Kron
Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Three quarters of physical or biological (including neuroscience) sciences. Third- or fourth-year standing. This course does not satisfy the general education requirement in the physical sciences.
Equivalent Course(s): BIOS 28101, PHSC 28101
Science Communication: Producing a Science Video Story
100 Units
Students will gain skills in oral communication and will apply these skills to produce a TED Talk-style video communicating primary research in a scientific area of the student's choice. The goal is effective, engaging communication of science to a general audience without sacrificing scientific accuracy or complexity. Students will work with faculty to write scripts and design visual and audio elements. The talks will be filmed and edited in collaboration with UChicago Creative, who will assist with visual aids and animation. Students will leave the course with a professionally produced video that they can use to advance their career and promote their topic. While this course naturally follows BIOS 28101, that course is not a pre-requisite.
Instructor(s): Sara Serritella
Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite(s): Three quarters of a Biological Sciences Fundamentals sequence. Third- or fourth-year standing. This course does not satisfy the general education requirement in the physical sciences.
Note(s): Equivalent Course(s): PHSC 28102
Equivalent Course(s): PHSC 28102, BIOS 28102
Science Communication: Crafting a Science Think Piece
100 Units
Science think pieces are an important genre of public writing. Think pieces are longform journalism typically ranging between 2,000 and 5,000 words that appear in print and online publications. Readers of all kinds turn to science think pieces to understand critical issues in STEM fields and get a big picture perspective. Science think pieces provide deep context, informed perspective, and expert synthesis of the most recent data and findings. They have the power to shape public opinion and influence science policy. This course guides students through the process of conceiving, developing, pitching, writing, and potentially publishing an engaging and persuasive science think piece. Through reading-inspired group discussions and instructor-led writing projects, the course introduces students to current theories and best practices of science communication as well as everyday processes in science journalism and public-facing science writing. Students will finish the course with a polished science think piece ready for submission to potential venues for publication. No prior knowledge of science communication is required.
Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm
Terms Offered: Spring (2024) Autumn (2024) Spring (2025)
Prerequisite(s): Three quarters of physical or biological (including neuroscience) sciences. Third- or fourth-year standing or consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): PHSC 28104
Science Communication: Producing a Science Podcast
100 Units
Podcasts are one of the most popular ways for non-experts to learn about science and for working scientists to follow happenings in other fields. Podcasts are audio productions typically ranging between 20 and 45 minutes. Science podcasts provide context, perspective, and synthesis to diverse audiences. They have the power to highlight recent findings, surface the everyday aspects of scientific research practices, amplify diverse voices in the sciences, and combat misinformation. This course prepares students to create science content in audio formats through practical studio experience. It provides a platform for science storytelling, an introduction to science communication theory, and covers science journalism best practices. Emphasis will be placed on crafting compelling audio stories, interviewing techniques, narration, sourcing audio clips and samples, editing, accessibility, and creating show notes and supporting materials. Students will finish the course with a polished science podcast episode ready for publishing. No prior knowledge of science communication is required.
Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm
Terms Offered: Spring (2024), Winter (2025)
Science Communication: Designing a Science Exhibit
100 Units
For more than a century, public science exhibits have popularized and increased access to scientific knowledge. Today, science exhibits are typically found at museums, planetariums, libraries, zoos, historical sites, universities, and online. Science exhibits allow the public to engage with material examples of scientific work and its products, learn from interpretive text and diagrams, and make connections between the history of science and science in the present day. They have the ability to foster public support for science, inspire future and early career scientists, and make science more accessible for audiences of all ages. This course prepares students to conceptualize, propose, design, install, curate, and evaluate science exhibits. The class will include visits to science collections and museums, interactions with professional curators, and will explore practical aspects of science communication theory. Students will finish the course ready to develop effective and informative science exhibits in both small and large formats, from a display case to an exhibit hall. No prior knowledge of science communication is required.
Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm
Terms Offered: Spring (2025)
Introduction to Science Communication
100 Units
Communicating accurately and effectively about science to non-expert audiences is quickly becoming an essential skill for scientists and non-scientists alike. This course provides a foundation in science communication theory and practice that prepares students to communicate about their own research, or someone else’s across a wide range of media formats and situations. Broadly scoped, this course covers the history of science communication, different approaches to engaging public audiences about science, theories of communication and science education, as well as practical training in science journalism and science writing. Each week we will focus our learning by investigating and analyzing a different case study from the perspective of science communication including scientific breakthroughs, emergencies, consensus, controversies, innovations, and everyday applications of research. Concepts and skills we will cover include the deficit model of science communication, conveying uncertainty and risk, engaging diverse stakeholders, correcting misconceptions, fact checking to ensure scientific accuracy, and communicating about major discoveries and everyday practice. No prior knowledge of science communication is required.
Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm
Terms Offered: Winter (2025)
Elective Courses
The Body on Display
100 Units
In this course we will examine the historical and ethical landscape of exhibiting humans in various forms to a viewing public. We will examine the display of living humans in circuses, medical grand rounds, and sports events through history. How the types of people displayed and the control for displays vary across different cultures and through time will be discussed. We will then turn our attention to corpses and discuss the timeline of an entity transitioning from a living being to a corpse and then to dirt. We will consider the treatment of bodies across this timeline, today and in the past. Regarding bodies used for medical purposes, we will look at anatomical displays in scientific journals, books, collections, and museums; the gross anatomy dissection of human corpses as a rite-of-passage in medical education; and artistic displays. Source material will come primarily from memoirs, academic articles, and books (mostly long-form journalism). Throughout, instructive comparisons such as between the display of apes and humans or between bodies and body parts, will be entertained as we consider the benefits and harms incurred by diverse parties from the display of bodies. Ultimately, our interrogation of bodies on display will reveal implicit societal attitudes toward life, death, and personhood.
Instructor(s): Peggy Mason
Terms Offered: Winter
Explorations of Mars
100 Units
Mars seems to be on everyone’s mind. Is there life there? Will humans ever set foot on the surface? Should we try to establish a settlement? How did we become obsessed with the Red Planet in the first place? This course will prepare you to communicate effectively about space science and join conversations about Mars happening across society. Through readings, activities, and discussions focused on history, science, and culture we will build an understanding of important figures, events, ideas, and trends required to communicate about Mars. A major focus will be learning how Mars has factored into different social and cultural movements here on Earth, including theological debates, military conquest, scientific exploration, and commercial settlement. We combine this foundation with theories and practices from science communication, including how to engage non-expert audiences, explain complex terms and concepts, convey uncertainty and ambiguity, and counter misinformation and conspiracy theories. The course moves from the earliest visual observations of Mars to present-day robotic missions on the planet’s surface, and also considers plans for future human exploration and habitation. Students can expect a deepened understanding of our important cosmic neighbor and how to think, write, and speak about it. No prior knowledge of Mars is required.
Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm
Terms Offered: Winter (2025)
Science Communication: Science Writing for Scientists
100 Units
With misinformation about science more common than ever, it is critically important that the next generation of scientists learn how to communicate their work. Yet scientists are most often trained to explain their work to other scientists, not to the public at large. This class focuses on a breadth of different media that scientists can use to share the importance and complexity of work to a lay audience, from text, to imagery, to video and audio, focusing on how to construct simple and compelling stories from complex scientific ideas, and to convey accuracy without sacrificing clarity. Through in-class workshops and discussions, the students will learn how to break down different aspects of good science writing, including story leads, quotes, and description, and practice interview skills with visiting scientists. Students will apply these skills through three writing projects of increasing length, ending with a final project telling a long science story through the medium of their choice. No prior knowledge of science communication is required. This course is part of the Semester in Environmental Science Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory
Instructor(s): Claudia Geib
Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This course requires enrollment in the Semester in Environmental Science Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory
Note(s): Equivalent Course(s): TBD SCPD 26021.
Sense & Sensibility & Science @ UChicago
100 Units
In Sense & Sensibility & Science, you will learn how to better incorporate into your thinking and decision making the problem-solving techniques of science at its best. Many insights and conceptual tools from scientific thinking are of great utility for solving problems in your own day-to-day life and in a democracy. Yet, as individuals, as groups, as whole societies we fail to take full advantage of these methods. The focus in this course is on the errors humans tend to make, and the approaches scientific methodology has developed (and continues to develop) to minimize those errors. The course includes a discussion of the nature of science, what makes science such an effective way of knowing, how both non-scientific thinking and scientific thinking can go awry, and how we can reason more clearly and successfully as individuals, as members of groups, and as citizens of a democracy. The undergraduate course will be simultaneously taught at UC Berkeley, Harvard and UChicago in spring 2024, with an opportunity for students from all three courses to participate remotely in the same deliberative polling capstone experience. UChicago's spring 2024 course premiere builds on a decade of experience developing and teaching the popular course at Berkeley and Harvard's adoption of its own version in 2021.
Instructor(s): Reid Hastie; Jordan Kemp; Eamon Duede
Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ: Third or fourth-year standing.
Equivalent Course(s): DIGS 26021, BPRO 26021, HIPS 26021, SOSC 26021, PBPL 26021 SCPD 26900.
Communicating Science: For Peers and the Public
100 Units
Themes include state-of-the-art approaches and strategies for communicating and presenting science in professional and public spheres, understanding how the public learns and experiences science, exploring the interaction between science, art and society, discovering UC's top historic science discoveries, and thinking anew our campus science experience.
Instructor(s): Paul Sereno, Chana Haouzi, Jeremy Manier
Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ: Third or fourth-year standing.
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 26900, CHST 26900, ARTH 26809, BPRO 26900