This document discusses using Facebook to popularize science by sparking a sense of wonder. It suggests sharing meaningful scientific content using images and focusing on a narrow topic area. Testing different types of posts showed that posts about love received the most engagement from friends. To improve outreach, the author recommends making content more relatable to human experiences and testing different approaches to measure their ability to generate interest and critical thinking.

1. [
[
I hold that the popularization of
science is successful if, at first, it
does no more than spark the
sense of wonder. - Carl Sagan
Science popularization through Facebook
Dr. Fernando Luna-Vera and Diana C. Gasca
October 27/2011

2. [
[ To spark sense of wonder we
first need to communicate ideas
or content to wonder about.
[
[
We need to use the right
media to share ideas

3. Is a good media to
Share content.
Whether you "Like" a piece of content, comment on it or simply click on it--the person
sharing it becomes part of your active network. With Active networks users keep up with
between 2 times and 4 times more people than through more traditional communication.

4. Cartoon-sign like
Sharing
Scientific
Meaningful pictures
content

5. [
[
Set your own personal brand. You want people to identify
yourself with a narrow set of topics

6. [
[
I Used status updates to make my
content appear into the stream
and reach my friends network.
[
[
I Prepared 5 different posts
and observed interactions:
Comment

7. 10 Comments 1
"Here's some news
1
that doesn't suck!"

8. x " It may be that brilliance correlates with
risk-taking personalities, but I wouldn't agree
that risk-taking through multiple sexual
partners is any indication of brilliance- there
are men of ALL intelligence levels pursuing
the same thing. Also, there is no mention of
brilliant women... perhaps they are more
successful at keeping such things private ;)"
2 Comments 3
0

9. 13 Comments 0
0

10. 7 Comments 0
0

11. “That is incredibly interesting. I've
always thought that the early
stages of love are weirdly
addictive, much like I thought
drug addiction would be, but
never experienced myself.”
19 Comments 3
3

12. “ “
“
Re-post your posts it seems to
keep up the attention of your
“
Most of “likes” are
obtained in the
crowd. course of 120 min.

13. [
[
Approach to science in a human way. Be
funny, cause surprise, be close to the
human history begin or their human
related histories. (Love is good)
Boring, no
likes or
People “like it”,
comments
People comment

14. In this exercise we got some impact for science
popularization, since no science background
people were engaged in the interaction.
But we got 59 “likes” from 36 people, then some
friends are more engaged in interaction that
others. Increase diversity , make more friends!

15. So, Works
to reach your friends with appropriate science-
related content and make them engage in the
interaction.
Also, Facebook features allow you to test how
influent your posts (content) are, we can measure!
?
[ However, how can we measure if we are sparking the
sense of wonder and helping our friends to become
?
stronger critical thinkers
[