Building a scientific future inclusive for everyone, science is often portrayed as knowledge that first must be transmitted and then understood before it can be read and considered. We write notes that are memorised, run experiments that replicate laboratory procedures, practice exams and receive feedback that suggests that science has never yet been encountered or discussed by individuals before years of formal education have come to an end.
And that idea must surely be questioned.
Young people are currently experiencing all sorts of scientific and technical developments that will dominate most, if not all, of their lives, and that must inevitably mean there has been little time to reflect. AI's use is changing how we do work and communicate. Climate change continues to shape the economy and entire communities. Biotechnology has posed questions concerning medicine and genetics that could lead to major ethical debate as new discoveries emerge.
Space exploration moves into its third or fourth boom period, and information systems are now entirely integrated into our lives.
These aren't abstract issues confined to the walls of the lab or a university department -- they're part of our world now, as the students' environment can thus give their readers a solid basis for conversation rather than study. Science is more of a discussion than a lecture. Learning facts can quite often be seen as studying; engagement, however, is really asking what questions are left to be addressed, what interpretations may exist between them and their corresponding answers, how to communicate evidence and what social impacts or changes occur due to such scientific developments. It's in this area that students can prove valuable, because they have entered and will continue to experience scientific issues at a different age to the ones who have developed this theory over their entire lifespan. Concerns tend to be more immediate, such as when a student considering the limitations to the use of an AI has experienced AI itself rather than solely through a university department in the time of the research being conducted.
Or when a student looks at atmospheric diagrams not as data, but as conditions of the world that they expect to live in. That isn't to say children are correct in the views that they express about such sciences – rather, we say that they have a right to; we do not suggest using age over scientific expertise, as it is still the ability of both researchers and laypeople to communicate effectively which carries ultimate weight in science, but equally they are not exclusive extremes of argument. The history of science contains countless instances of scientific truths becoming visible to those willing to question a long-standing assumption, not that knowledge requires being aged, but rather an approach that makes use of human interest when tackling some of science's most urgent problems. Science's questions are public questions. That, at least as concerns AI, is undeniable.
Whilst it's a technical pursuit to create advanced forms of AI, the hardest issues are social and political: how do we deal with it, the education system, information validity, when the device is becoming difficult to avoid and how we will handle the speed at which tech is advancing compared to our rules on it?
Young people, and students in particular, find these types of ethical questions on the computer as readily as they can find a poem in a book. An interview between student writers about the use of generative AI, for instance, has given insight from student lives into those questions already posed that otherwise would be handled by individuals who either developed the technology or have always relied upon it. Similar realities are to be found within climate science – young people aren't referred to as "the future" out of nothing, but there is a far clearer reason when one thinks that it can be so soon after a child can draw a basic diagram. Climate policy today affects a student's education and the opportunities, jobs and basic systems that he or she will need for the rest of his or her life, such as how water resources and energy are going to function, long before they were any of the key figures in a political campaign.
Students already encounter all sorts of scientific discussions, whether concerning space, a national health programme, computing or numerous other fields, due to the immediate relationship between human society and science that they possess. Access constitutes progress. One fact is certain: a nation could be responsible for excellent scientific research yet do absolutely nothing to foster a real sense of what science is by failing to make discoveries accessible. Scientific publication isn't just about presenting our findings; they're a relationship with the public. A complex finding can't be watered down so much so that it becomes scientifically untrue – so by the same token, technical language shouldn't remain jargon and therefore isolated; an understanding and assessment of evidence and risk that takes its audience into account has to stand up against many questions, and that's where I believe student opinion could contribute an incredible amount, for they could provide the initial link and explanation for what could otherwise never progress.
Student writing on, say, a report that was based on many complex documents could bring the primary finding from this, its main questions and uncertainties to the reader's attention in a coherent and easy-to-read format, therefore giving any writer further inspiration to engage in more articles like that and potentially being encouraged to write scientifically too; it's about building bridges between them and what society knows, so students are able to join those bridges eventually. Young people contribute more than they merely consume. We've talked briefly about the notion of the student as an observer of the scientific process; however, that isn't enough. Students don't need simply to be participants in programmes designed to get young people informed and excited; instead, they can join more in a contribution to science itself: articles have become such common knowledge, why can't there be contributions on new articles about topics such as genetics or any that may be encountered during students', teachers', and parents' lives that they could then choose to write an academic article on? It would depend on the experience of a student too, as some subjects can often have such stark and clear opinions at differing viewpoints that students find one particular stance easier to explore.
But then there is still plenty of research-based opinion within an article for the student to research and evaluate independently, so perhaps this would be the role of the student publication: it's simply opening up opportunities that were always there yet never realised, for young people, at least; that's what we see from a GYSJ. Youth is not bound by national boundaries. Neither is science for that matter, and no other topic demonstrates it better, for science is an international endeavour, and even though it is often thought of, and even represented as belonging to only one certain nationality because of how it's been developed from different angles at different times, it's actually about many different people in all sorts of societies coming together, in countries and worlds miles away from one another, to achieve that very endeavour. For example, a student in India sees much different circumstances than one in Nairobi; their perspective would inevitably be different depending upon how much they live around each respective country. For that reason I feel that science must not work within fixed borders anymore – it should take one another's ideas and experiences into account within scientific discourse.
This requires many people to cooperate.
That is the core reason that GYSJ was conceived; in order to demonstrate these understandings, and it's also through this kind of reasoning that science works, in being able to question everything with a rational mind and a well-researched opinion. What GYSJ is trying to achieve A really simple idea lies behind Global Youth Science Journal; it aims to provide a platform in which young people are not just studying science but engaged.
0 Comments