Science Week of Action

We’re excited to kick off our second annual Science Week of Action today, September 17!

The March for Science as an event sent a powerful message that millions of people around the world are calling for equitable, evidence-based policies. What’s left of that day is a shared sense of camaraderie, some incredible photographs, and the legacy of seeing people from all backgrounds and professions come together to support science for the common good. But one day alone cannot shift the balance. That’s why the March for Science is committed to year round advocacy and holding our elected and appointed officials accountable for evidence-based policies every day, in every area. This week was amplify that message and bring science to the forefront of their minds again.

How did we choose the days?

For the last few months, we’ve been surveying science advocates on what policies are important to them. We must acknowledge from the top that this is a self selecting group — people who follow our Facebook and Twitter accounts and those on our mailing list who chose to respond — but we can still draw some conclusions on what priorities matter most to March for Science supporters. Want to add your voice? Whether you attended a march or disagree with its premise, we’re eager to have all science advocates weigh in. The March for Science is only a piece of a community of science advocates — all of whom should be heard. Take the survey here.

Back to the results. We’ll be releasing statistical analyses of the data later this year, but for the purposes of the week of action, we guided our selection of days with the answer to one question — “Think big — of the following list of science policy topics, please select the top ten priority issues that you think are most important for policymakers to address at the national and/or international scale.”

With an n=3483, 91% of people listed climate change as a priority. This was followed by renewable energy with 77%, scientific integrity with 71% and science education at 71%. That gave us our 4 days:

Monday: Sustainability/Renewable Energy

Tuesday: Climate Change

Wednesday: Scientific Integrity

Thursday: Science Education

Rounding out the top 10 (all within 5% points) were ocean health, conservation, science funding, clean water, clean air, and environmental justice.

Onward!