“Our aim is really to bring science to people in ways that capture the wonder of nature as well as the excitement that comes from asking questions, figuring things out — and do so in ways that result in skills and reasoning and confidence and persistence.” ~ Janet Coffey

I came across the heading “DISCOVERY MATTERS” as I dug around the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s website and I knew I was on to something.

Janet Coffey, Ph.D., directs the Moore Foundation’s Curiosity-Driven Science Initiative. She aims to enhance opportunities for active public engagement with science as a means to help cultivate a curious and an open-minded public that appreciates, values and uses science.

I was all ears.

We started with a shared delight in watching others in their own moments of discovery during the eclipse in April. From there, we explored the importance of scientific curiosity, public engagement in science, and the Foundation’s efforts to promote both curiosity-driven research more generally and research on their own philanthropy. (Randomization, anyone?) We dug into the role of curiosity in learning and the paradoxical value of uncertainty.

I’d gone looking for curiosity-driven research and found myself at its natural citizen-science extension.

One fundamental inspiration for me is what we can learn from [Gordon Moore] about curiosity and about [his] early experiences in trying to make sense of the world… And, you know, for him, it was really about the pleasure of the problem and the fun of figuring something out.

Listen to Choose to Be Curious #231: The Moore Foundation’s Curiosity-Driven Science Initiative, with Janet Coffey

Check out the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Curiosity-Driven Science Initiative.

I don’t know about you, but I think The Foldscope, the foldable paper microscope Janet mentioned, is pretty cool. A microscope for the cost of pencils… wow!

We blew right past it, but “Moore’s Law” was a surprisingly robust prediction, based on Gordon Moore’s observations, that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Think about the scale of that growth and potential!

Into citizen science, nature, and discovery? You might enjoy these C2BC Classics: Beyond Your Front Door, with Dina Pavlis; Citizen Science Is for Everyone, with Caroline Nickerson; Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery, with Rebecca Kamen; The Inquiring Mind Behind Science Writing, with Kim O’Connell; The Cost of Curiosity, with Seeta Sistla; A Capital Naturalist, with Alonso Abugattas; and Ode to Crows, with Coleen and John Marzluff.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “An Open is Ab” by Blue Nocturnal, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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