A Survey of Participants in Science Workshops for Parents and Their Children from the Viewpoint of Their Interest in Science and Technology

Abstract

People engaged in science technology are more likely to participate in science workshops or public engagement activities concerning science, technology and innovation policy than unengaged people. From the viewpoint of fostering scientific literacy for all, this situation needs to be improved. So far, in order to attract the unengaged, combining science workshops with other kinds of workshops such as art or tea ceremony has been attempted. In this paper, we propose a new approach, “science workshops for parents and their children.” We investigated participants in science workshops for parents and their children from the viewpoint of their interest in science and technology. Our results showed that 1) more parents and their children in the group potentially interested in science and technology participated in the workshops, 2) there is no significant difference in the rate of parents’ interested groups compared to interested groups of their children, 3) there is a significant difference in the rate of children’s interested groups between their grades.