Language science outreach through schools and social media: critical considerations

As researchers who rely on federal funding and community participation, we have an obligation to return scientific knowledge to the community. Our outreach goals are to share information about language development and sensory impairments, introduce language science to future scientists, distribute scientific results accessibly, and illuminate the breadth of what science and scientists look like. We seek to achieve this in two ways: by sharing about language science beyond the ivory tower through short videos on social media and easy-to-read articles on our blog, and through educational outreach. For the latter, in recent efforts we designed and implemented after-school programming for young public schoolchildren, targeting early negative attitudes about STEM abilities. We presented profiles of underrepresented scientists in a range of fields, including language science, and discussed language modalities using observation games to help children appreciate science as a creative process of questions and failure – something they could do, not just “others” who do not look like them. We used the Draw-a-Scientist Task to assess our impact: children’s drawings were more representative after our program. In this article, we explore our missteps, difficulties, and successes.