Teaching tools to help students understand the reciprocal relationship between science and policy

Session: 22. - How to Talk Science so Policy will Listen, and Listen so Science will Talk?

Paul Sibley, University of Guelph, School of Environmental Sciences, [email protected]

Abstract

In many university environmental science-based programs, students graduate with a weak understanding about the important relationship between science and policy. In an era where science is increasingly under siege, drawing clear connections between scientific research and policy making, and the capacity to effectively communicate this relationship, seems more critical than ever. In this presentation, I draw upon three effective teaching tools - scenario analysis (SA), bow-tie risk assessment, and policy briefs - that I have incorporated into my graduate level course, “The Science and Management of Stressors in the Great Lakes”, to understand and communicate the reciprocal relationship between science and policy. SA is used to analyze possible future events based on current/historical scientific understanding by considering alternative possible desired/achievable outcomes and then developing commensurate policy options to achieve those outcomes. SA is often used in conjunction with bow-tie RA which approaches the question of hazard/risk by asking “what elements of a given policy are failing?” Policy briefs are short documents that may be neutral (articulate the state of science and the need for new policy or policy changes in the face of emerging knowledge) or advocate a particular policy position that is of interest to its creator(s).

1. Keyword
policy making

2. Keyword
education

3. Keyword
Great Lakes basin

4. Additional Keyword
Science-policy nexus