Brown Christopher B, White Peter J T
Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA.
Insects. 2024 Sep 26;15(10):742. doi: 10.3390/insects15100742.
Engaging the public is a common practice in science disciplines and is deeply rooted in the discipline of entomology. These efforts to engage specific target groups within the general public are well studied, especially extension efforts to engage farmers and agricultural stakeholders, but this is not the case for K-12 educational spaces. Here, we conducted a scoping review to (1) determine the characteristics of entomology outreach efforts engaging K-12 populations and (2) identify opportunities for improvement based on the synthesis of those characteristics. We systematically searched five databases to identify 42 publications relevant to the parameters of this project. Analysis of characteristics indicated that entomology outreach efforts in K-12 classrooms tend to be reflective, are more often published in educationally focused journals, and rarely evaluate the interventions employed. Opportunities for improvement were identified from these trends, and from them we suggest that the practice of K-12 outreach benefits from (i) publishing in entomology-focused journals, (ii) including non-academic authors, (iii) evaluating interventions, (iv) including student data, and (v) considering axes of diversity and inclusion.
让公众参与是科学学科中的常见做法，在昆虫学学科中更是根深蒂固。针对普通公众中的特定目标群体开展的这些工作已得到充分研究，尤其是与农民和农业利益相关者互动的推广工作，但在K-12教育领域并非如此。在此，我们进行了一项范围综述，以（1）确定针对K-12人群的昆虫学推广工作的特点，以及（2）基于对这些特点的综合分析确定改进机会。我们系统地检索了五个数据库，以识别42篇与本项目参数相关的出版物。对特点的分析表明，在K-12课堂上开展的昆虫学推广工作往往具有反思性，更多地发表在以教育为重点的期刊上，并且很少评估所采用的干预措施。从这些趋势中确定了改进机会，据此我们建议，K-12推广工作可从以下方面受益：（i）在以昆虫学为重点的期刊上发表文章，（ii）纳入非学术作者，（iii）评估干预措施，（iv）纳入学生数据，以及（v）考虑多样性和包容性的维度。
