While we’re talking about crowdfunding science, there is something that needs to be addressed:

Science literacy.

It’s more than a buzz-phrase, it is a foundation stone of science itself. Without it, we would not have lively debates, new ideas building off old ideas, and the all important critical thinking to keep the cycle going. And, as of now, it’s the foundation of getting the public to get excited about your research enough to help you generate buzz, volunteer to crowdsource work, or even put their wallet where their beliefs are. But, let’s step back a moment and think about where science literacy stems from.

Generally, teachers look for “literacy” in the form of understanding and doing well on exams. This often brings about feelings of dread and anxiety, not the excitement we hope to generate of the human race. After all, when was the last time you got excited about that exam you knew was going to judge your mind and how well you grasped the material. Even if you’ve been out of school a while I’m sure you remember the feeling associated with the mere statement of, “I need to study for an exam.”

This is illustrated nicely in an experiment I did a few years ago. I decided to take a more direct approach to finding out if my students in both the classroom and museums where I volunteer at knew what was going on. So, I ask them to take a few minutes out and to tell me what they thought the phrase “science literacy” meant — using their own words.

The answers all revolved around two concepts: Understanding and passing an exam. One of the kids summed up their feelings quite nicely with, “Science literacy is understanding the material long enough to pass the exam.”

This shows me that people are thinking about it wrong. Yes, science literacy is about comprehension and understanding. It is primarily measured by ability to pass an exam. However, they are missing a core component of being able to understand the logic and reasoning, let alone taking it a step further to wider applications in various area.

As an educator, this was heartbreaking to me. The students and teachers were missing a major point of science, which is science literacy. One shouldn’t just regurgitate it for the tests, though admittedly that is a practise that is continued on into universities as well, and sometimes even through to a Ph.D. As a researcher helping independent researchers develop their own paths, it’s an opportunity.

It’s an opportunity to generate excitement for science in a whole new way.

When you put yourself and your project out there on a crowdfunding source, you have the opportunity to make things exciting, accessible, and understandable. And this means not just to the public, but also to fellow scientists.

I discovered while working in an interdisciplinary field of geoarchaeology not everyone was on the same page. You see, I wanted to study how the landscapes change over time — so I picked up cosmogenic beryllium, which has the potential to be used to trace erosion as well as date it. From the archaeologists that didn’t quite get it I heard grumblings about how the old methods were working just fine, and from the agriculturalists who study modern-day erosion I had to convince them that studying the past was viable. There was only a small group of people who really got what I was trying to go after — it was up to us to convince the rest of them that this was practical research with a good cause.

It’s the same with crowdfunding, but the stakes are higher. You’re not just aiming for reputation, but for your continued existence in the way of funding. (Not to put pressure on you or anything.) You’ll have your inner group of supporters, and it will be up to you guys to get people to understand and create enough buzz to fund the research.

And, as an unexpected side effect… 

We all want to be smarter, less gullible, and less likely to be taken advantage of. A relatively recent example of such bad science that has come out of an article in The Journal of Cosmology saying that there is evidence of life in meteors (Wickramasinghe, Wallis, Wallis, & Samaranayake, 2013). The article in question I noticed was first posted on Google+ social network. I noted it without reading it, then moved on. Then one of my students brought it in saying, “There’s life out there! Aliens are real! It’s from a scientific journal, so it must be true!” This got my attention to take a closer look at the article itself. Sure enough, the authors proclaimed to find fossil evidence of life in meteors.

Intrigued, but not an expert in this area, I wondered where to turn to confirm or debunk this before I told the students it was wrong. Thankfully, another has already worked hard to debunk this for us. Phil Plait of the blog Bad Astronomy has a wonderful breakdown of how this paper is a shining example of very bad science. If it weren’t for experts in the field taking time to break things down to the public, there would be a lot more crazy going on, and it would be that much harder for you to get funding from your non-sensational work. After all, how can you compete with Aliens?

Neil deGrasse Tyson phrased it best on how science literacy can do just that. It’s IS a vaccine, and by learning to communicate the value of your own little piece of the puzzle better, you create a better world while making money for your cause.