As I build this portion of scipop, what I plan to focus on are three areas:

1) Sharing some of the nuts and bolts I’ve used to weld together my Science and Popular Culture class.

2) Analytical reflections on some of the choices I’ve been confronted with, options I’ve pursued, and how I’ve modified my thinking in light of what my students have taught me; and

3) Some examples of assignments and results produced by the students themselves, in the form of excerpts and selections.

My first contribution is of the “nuts and bolts” variety: a list of all the books and visual materials I’ve assigned to students in the seven years I’ve taught the course. In all my teaching I’ve benefitted enormously from being able to read the syllabi that other professors have posted on the web; I hope this is a partial payback of that debt that may be useful to someone else wondering how to put such a course together.

My second contribution is the text of a plenary address I delivered at the joint meeting of the History of Science Society and the Society for the History of Technology in 2005, which gives some background on my thoughts about why historians of science need to make more of an effort to participate in digital history efforts:

“What have we to do with Mr. Everyman, or he with us? Reflections on Professionalism, the Public and the Digital Age”

My third contribution is a kind of “round robin” exercise that really intrigued students: a compilation of thoughts from every class member on a speculative question — in this case, “What do you think is ‘out there’ when you gaze into the night sky?” This worked really well as an “icebreaker” when I posted the results. It’s one of my favorite kind of activities.

There’s more to come as I move forward:

Further explanation of why I’ve chosen these four “modules” to structure the class, and this site

My hits and misses in encouraging students to analyze films and videos, rather than simply describe the plot

Examples from doing the “Draw-a-Scientist” test with my undergraduates.

And teaching reflections can also be found on the scipop blog, petri dish.