Engaging Participatory Literacy through Science Zines

Fostering science literacy by engaging students as active participants and communicators of scientific ideas can enhance learning as well as a sense of personal investment. Science “zine” projects can be an effective way to structure this kind of participatory science literacy and flexibly build on specific course content as well as skills in the research, conceptualization, and communication of scientific ideas. When students are engaged as media producers and educators, their role and responsibility in the “ecology of scientific information” becomes more apparent and potentially more rewarding.