COPUS and Science Cafés

Some science café scenes from across the country...

—It is a Sunday in Boston, and the Celtics have just won an important game. The sports bar is buzzing with energy, but a buffet of free appetizers helps the basketball fans settle down. Before long a short science video plays on the bar's televisions, kicking off a lively half-hour conversation between the crowd and a geneticist.

—As the light starts to fade on a clear spring evening in San Francisco, an outspoken group of revelers gathers in a hip coffeehouse to chat with a researcher about recent developments in nanotechnology.

—The promise of a free drink has helped to pack a section of a restaurant in downtown Raleigh on a brisk Tuesday in October. The after-work crowd soon turns its attention to a discussion with a museum paleontologist about a recent T. Rex find.

—On a gray afternoon in a rural town in Southern Illinois a nurse from a nearby hospital talks over the roots of the obesity epidemic at a local coffeehouse filled with young couples and families.

Science café events like these are popping up all over the US. Anyone can start a science café series. They are inexpensive to run, and easy to organize. Many COPUS participants already run their own, and many more are integrating them into Year of Science celebrations.

There are three ways to get involved in a science café:

1. Present at a café. If you are a scientist who enjoys discussing your work with the general public, you may be a great match for a café. Start out by looking over these Tips for Presenters.
2. Support an existing café. Use the Find a Cafe map www.sciencecafes.org/find.html to see if there is an active café in your area, and contact the café organizer to see if you can work together. Be sure to invite them to join your COPUS regional hub!
3. Start your own. Even if there is an active café in your area, it is likely there is room for another. Here's a glance at who is starting new cafés.
    
   • COPUS regional hubs are starting cafés by planning cafés that align with the Year of Science themes, giving each of the organizations in the hub a chance to participate.
   • Professional societies are starting cafés to invigorate local chapters, or add a public outreach component to annual meetings.
   • Universities are starting cafés to engage their community while helping staff become better communicators.
   • Informal science institutions (like museums and public television stations) are starting cafés to reach new audiences.
   • High school teachers are starting cafés to empower their students to take ownership of their education (for more on this see www.juniorcafesci.org.uk/).
   • Independent volunteers are starting cafés to fulfill an interest in both science and socializing.

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Resources Available to COPUS Participants

Advice. NOVA scienceNOW is in daily contact with café organizers and partners. We are accustomed to helping people start new café series and even offer small grants to help get you started. Contact us using this website, and be sure to check out the rest of the information available on sciencecafes.org.

Partners. There are many great ways to get connected to others in your area that will help you start a science café.

Video. Many cafés integrate video content into café events. Find out more about using video in a science cafe here. NOVA scienceNOW has also created this list of available video resources (PDF) that is correlated to the COPUS Year of Science themes.