Successes and learnings from the Year of Science
In 2016, Wiki Education kicked off the largest targeted content initiative ever undertaken in the Wikimedia world: the Wikipedia Year of Science. When the year wrapped up in December, our programs for the initiative had added nearly 5 million words of content to the English Wikipedia. More than 6,300 students edited more than 5,700 articles on … Continued
Women Scientists in Blue During the Year of Science
Last year, one of the goals we set for the Year of Science campaign was to foster the development of biographies of women scientists on Wikipedia. Throughout the year we saw great work from students and Visiting Scholars, but in this post I’d like to highlight the the results of a Year of Science “virtual … Continued
Encouraging education work in Brazil
Last week, I had the privilege of traveling to São Paulo, Brazil, giving two presentations at the University of São Paulo (USP), meeting with the Grupo de Usuários Wikimedia no Brasil (Wikimedia Brasil User Group), and attending a neuroscience and mathematics edit-a-thon for the Portuguese Wikipedia. The group in Brazil is already having an incredible … Continued
Overcoming barriers to engage psychology students in the PSYCH+Feminism Initiative
Patricia Brooks is a Professor at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York and Doctoral Faculty at The Graduate Center, CUNY where she serves as the Deputy Executive Officer of the PhD program in Psychology. Christina Shane-Simpson is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Elizabeth Che is a doctoral student at … Continued
Join us at AAAS!
This week, Wiki Education staff will attend the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2016, we attended the meeting in Washington, D.C., where we met dozens of scientists across disciplines. Their enthusiasm for sharing knowledge with the public was clear. Wikipedia has a far reach to non-scientists, and … Continued
Wiki Education encourages geophysicists to teach with Wikipedia
Last month, Outreach Manager Samantha Weald, Classroom Program Manager Helaine Blumenthal, Director of Programs LiAnna Davis, and I attended the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting here in San Francisco. At the conference, we spoke to dozens of scientists who believe Wikipedia is a valuable website for them, their students, and the world. We’re excited to … Continued
Highlighting Wikipedians’ contributions to science articles in the 2016 WikiCup
In the early days of Wikipedia, the community’s priority was on creating content. Starting from scratch, all of the fundamental topics we take for granted had to start somewhere. Today, there are more than 5.3 million articles on the English Wikipedia alone, and while there are still plenty of notable subjects not yet represented, the … Continued
The Roundup: A Sulfate named George
What’s in a name? When it comes to minerals, a name can tell you quite a bit. Students from North Dakota State University’s Mineralogy course created 16 new articles about minerals. All of them have surprisingly human names, because they’re named after famous geologists. Students tackled George-ericksenite, now a 3,000-word article about a yellow mineral … Continued
The Roundup: Communicating chemistry
When higher ed students write papers for a chemistry class, they’re typically writing for an audience of one: their instructor. If students put any thought into communicating science, it gets lost in the fact that they’ll be communicating science with the exact same person they learned it from. But what happens when you’re one of the … Continued
Five reasons you should donate to Wiki Education on Giving Tuesday
Today is Giving Tuesday, a U.S. holiday to encourage donations to worthy nonprofits. If you’re planning to make financial contributions this year, we hope you’ll consider supporting Wiki Education. Here’s why: 1. We’re dramatically improving the availability and accuracy of information available on Wikipedia. Since 2010, students in our program have added 25 million words … Continued