Marcellus Matters

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Marcellus Matters

• Living With Risk Can Give You Gas Engaging
  Adults in Science and Energy
• Terry Noll, project coordinator
• Margaret Hopkins, team member
• Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research
• Penn State University

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Marcellus Matters

• 3-year project funded by National Science
  Foundation Informal Science Education
• Targeting adults living in rural areas which
  historically have few resources for informal
  science programming
• 15-member, multi-disciplinary team (faculty and
  researchers from Earth Mineral Sciences,
  Education, Agricultural Sciences, Arts
  Architecture)
• PI Michael Arthur, Geosciences

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Marcellus Matters

• Project goals
• To increase participants knowledge of science
  and engineering related to energy consumption,
  production and policy
• To build a shared science-and-energy knowledge
  base to aid in community decisionmaking
• To apply the skills of scientific inquiry and
  investigation (citizen science)
• To develop strategies for deliberation of complex
  environmental issues

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Marcellus Matters

• Four programs
• Marcellus Environmental Planning Workshop
• Marcellus Community Network
• Marcellus Community-Based Performance
• Marcellus Community Science Volunteer Program

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Session Locations
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Marcellus Matters

• Three specific regions
• Coal country
• Clearfield, Jefferson and Elk counties
• History of natural resource extraction and legacy
  of environmental impacts from coal mining
• Northern Tier
• Clinton, Sullivan, Lycoming counties
• Areas with tourism economy and little to no
  history of natural resource extraction
• Southwestern Pennsylvania
• Washington, Fayette and Greene counties
• History of natural resource extraction and
  corporate presence

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Marcellus Matters

• Marcellus Community-Based Performance
• Live theater, original plays
• Actors and scientists from the project
• Two versions
• Scenes and a multi-media performance
• Landowner, landman family conflict
• Based on web postings
• Live radio show (with sound effects, singing)
• Focus on who to believe/how to evaluate
  conflicting information
• Followed by facilitated group discussions
• Opportunity for participants to interact with
  scientists
• Opportunity for participants to respond to the
  vignettes

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Marcellus Matters

• Clearfield County
• Post-performance evaluations, post-performance
  interviews of participants and post-performance
  evaluations by actors
• Why people attended (interest in how relates to
  property, environment, economy etc.)
• Perception of the event (lots of factual info,
  info/points of view that are new, balance of
  performance and info)
• Thoughts about views (want to hear what others
  say multiple valid points of view can learn
  from what others say

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Marcellus Matters

• What we have learned from post-performance
  evaluations
• Live theater creates new relationships between
  community members and scientists
• Live theater is effective at generating dialogue
  the vignettes/scenes provide new avenues for
  talking and sharing about Marcellus
• Live theater can defuse some of the tensions
  surrounding Marcellus development
• Live theater can be a means of presenting
  information people reported they learned

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Marcellus Matters

• What we are still experimenting with
• The best venue
• Audience comes to us?
• Going to the audience?
• Theatre vs county fair?
• The best form
• Structuring the post-performance conversation
• Responding to audience but directing the response
• Trained facilitators allowing actors to stay
  with their roles and their characters points of
  view
• Balancing the affective experience of theater and
  presentation of science-based information

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Marcellus Matters

• Marcellus Community Science Volunteers
• Modeled after Master Gardener and Master
  Naturalist program
• Eight-weeks of classes
• Once/week 2.5 hours
• Saturday session of field work (water testing)
• Rig tour
• Volunteer commitment
• Clearfield County (2 groups)

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Marcellus Matters

• Sessions (some combined)
• Energy systems and choices
• Nature of science
• Geology of Marcellus Shale
• Engineering
• Hydrogeology and water testing
• Land use planning
• Community impacts
• Economic and workforce development
• Dialogue skills

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Marcellus Matters

• Session structures
• Hands-on, group activities
• Well siting activity, landowners with conflicting
  values
• Visuals
• Correlation/causation data exercise
• Energyville
• Data collection
• Lectures (engineering)
• Media reports
• Session materials
• Readings
• Powerpoints
• Additional resources

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Marcellus Matters

• Who participated?
• Senior Environmental Corps volunteers, county and
  township officials, school superintendent, high
  school science teacher, business owners,
  admissions officer with a technical institute,
  landowners
• Range of educational levels (individuals with low
  literacy skills and individuals with graduate
  degrees)
• More opposed to development than favored
• Fairly even split by gender

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Marcellus Matters

• Why they participated
• Most in search of more information about water
  impacts
• Will this contaminate my water supply?
• What happens if my water contains methane?
• Interest also high in understanding the geology,
  injection wells (seismicity) and engineering
• Many were confused by conflicting media reports,
  reports of conflicting data
• Most wanted information they could trust

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Marcellus Matters

• Formative and Summative Evaluations
• Pre- and post-test
• Weekly evaluations of session structure
  (effective? ineffective?), content (too simple?
  too complex?)
• Weekly reflections on each session (draw upon in
  conversation? used in work?)
• Focus groups
• Post-summative evaluation
• Delayed summative evaluation

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Marcellus Matters

• Evaluation instruments are measuring
• Gains in knowledge of geology, energy policy,
  water issues
• Acquisition of science skills (data collection,
  analysis, interpretation)
• Sharing of knowledge gained with others
• Engagement with emerging technologies
• Confidence in facilitation skills

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Marcellus Matters

• Participants responses
• Wanted more technical information, more local
  information
• Enjoyed hands-on activities but understood need
  for lecture/presentations
• Appreciated opportunities for extensive QA with
  scientists
• Questioned inclusion of community impacts,
  facilitation skills

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Marcellus Matters

• What we learned
• Providing science-based information is not enough
• Need to engage participants in understanding the
  development of scientific knowledge
• Build understanding and awareness of peer
  reviewhow it works, what it meansand scientific
  consensus
• They want us to tell them whether this is a good
  thing or a bad thingscience cant do that.

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Marcellus Matters

• Challenges
• Balancing peoples demand for content with their
  need to understand how science is an ongoing and
  cumulative process
• Explaining what scientists know and dont know
  (discomfort with uncertainty)
• Addressing world views
• Developing infrastructure to sustain relationship
  with Marcellus Community Science volunteers
• Citizen science research projects

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Marcellus Matters

• Next steps
• Marcellus Community Science Volunteer Program
• Clinton County (March 25-May 13)
• Sullivan County (Summer 2013)
• Marcellus Community Based Performance Program
  Clinton County, May 2013
• Marcellus Environmental Planning Workshop Pilot
  (Spring 2013)

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Marcellus Matters

• Reports from external evaluator can be found at
• http//informalscience.org/project/show/1983
• For more information, contact Terry Noll, project
  coordinator, tmg3_at_psu.edu