Countdown to the 2018 Student Advocacy Summit
It’s official. In less than 20 days(!), the inaugural Student Advocacy Summit will kick off at the Hilton in Chicago. Running from Friday, July 6th to Sunday, July 8th, the summit will bring together young minds from a variety of backgrounds to explore the intersection of science, policy, and society. Whether you’re a science fanatic or just super passionate about putting evidence-based policy into effect, we’d love to see you there!
So, in anticipation of the summit, we’re posting a series of articles, op-eds, and summit highlights every five days until July 6th to celebrate science and build up excitement. Today, we’re starting our countdown with a quick Q&A:
1) What is the summit’s mission?
In the words of Jordan Harrod, one of the students organizing the summit, “the summit will empower young people to inspire meaningful scientific discourse with the public, engage with non-scientists and scientists alike over issues at the intersection of science and advocacy, and act on the behalf of evidence-based policy at any level of government.”
“The summit will empower young people to inspire meaningful scientific discourse with the public, engage with non-scientists and scientists alike over issues at the intersection of science and advocacy, and act on the behalf of evidence-based policy at any level of government.”
Just to summarize, the summit’s primary goal is to empower youth to act upon robust science in the political sphere by educating attendees on advocacy, STEM engagement, and scientific literacy.
2) Who is encouraged to attend?
We’d love to see youth aged 13 to 25 from a diversity of backgrounds, ranging from students with experience in advocacy to those without any prior exposure to science in a political context. Most importantly, we’re making the event free (FREE!) for all participants, so financial constraints will never play a factor in who can attend. In doing so, we seek to diversify the voice of science advocacy, enriching it with a multitude of perspectives that can shed light on under-represented communities in STEM and ensure that scientific innovations and policy serve those who are most in need. We hope to see you in July, so in the case that you will be attending, please give us a heads-up by registering here!
3) What will we be doing at the summit?
The goal of the summit is to empower students from a broad array of backgrounds to serve as ambassadors for science in their communities and advocates for our future. Through conversations, skill-building, and activities, we will challenge today’s youth to tackle the critical issues at the intersection of science, policy, and society. Specifically, we will host speaker sessions to provide students with the support network and mentorship to actualize potential paths to advocacy and careers in STEM. By sharing the stories of scientists from many different backgrounds and professions, we seek to challenge students’ existing misconceptions of science as isolated or restricted to the lab environment. In the process of bridging the scientific and political domains, we believe that young people will implement science to exact beneficial change in their communities. Furthermore, the summit is an excellent networking opportunity for young people interested in the nexus of science and policy.
4) Why should anyone care about the summit?
In today’s world, being civically literate simply doesn’t cut it; we need to be scientifically literate as well. Too many decisions in the public domain address scientific concepts for it to be treated as a non-entity in the political sphere. More importantly, we believe that implementing evidence-based policy isn’t rocket science, and we want students to have the scientific literacy to make informed decisions about how science factors into their lives.
We believe that implementing evidence-based policy isn’t rocket science, and we want students to have the scientific literacy to make informed decisions about how science factors into their lives.
If we stay silent, we risk losing valuable scientific brainpower, precious funds that could fuel world-changing research, and potentially even our planet. We have an obligation to protect the human desire to push the boundaries of what is known.
— Sophia S., Pennsylvania
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To learn more about making your voice heard, visit us at our website. To take action, sign and share our petition to safeguard science in our schools, communities, and futures. To be a part of our conversation, join us on Twitter@ScienceTeens, on Instagram at scienceteens, and on Snapchat at march4science.
