Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

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Who Are Serendipians to You?

Serendip co-founder Paul Grobstein wrote that, ‘both science itself, and the human culture of which it is a part, would benefit from a story of science that encourages wider engagement with and participation in the processes of scientific exploration.’ As a digital ecosystem, it is committed to offering a nonhierarchical environment for collaboration between artists, doctors, scientists, students, teachers, and the general public. Serendip is committed to offering a nonhierarchical environment for collaboration between artists, doctors, scientists, students, teachers, and the general public. Inquiries from everyone everywhere are most welcome. 

 

brains playing on a playground

image by Rachel Grobstein

 

Serendip is a gathering place for students, teachers, researchers, and the general public to engage in collaboration, open-ended inquiry, and transdisciplinary projects. The website draws an average of more than 20,000 unique visitors per day and over 5 million unique visitors annually from around the world. Serendipians are people interested in discussing science and its implications for all members of society.  

The Biologist and Paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould argues that research can be shared with people without scientific training. He writes: "[t]he concepts of science, in all their richness and ambiguity, can be presented without any compromise, without any simplification counting as distortion, in language accessible to all intelligent people. Words, of course, must be varied, if only to eliminate a jargon and phraseology that would mystify anyone outside the priesthood, but conceptual depth should not at all vary between professional publication and general exposition."

The best way to see if you might have something to contribute to Serendip is to explore the site and find out where your interests overlap with material already published. Revising existing stories to get things progressively less wrong is an important component of Serendip’s mission and ongoing practice of discussing the implications of science and science education. Please read the contributing to page to find out more.