Based on 593 science journalism articles, included in CNKI from 1999 to 2018, this paper conducted a quantitative analysis to describe the hot topics and evolution atlas in the field of domestic science journalism research. From the perspective of distribution structure, more research articles are from the media industry. The past research focused on textual review and case study to discuss the traditional media such as newspapers. And most of the papers were published in non-key journals. This implies that the research about science journalism has long been at the edge of journalism and communication. In the past 20 years, the research of science journalism has gradually expanded the research topics such as humanistic concepts and communication effects from practical skills and audience analysis. Under the influence of social context and policy, scientific literacy, agricultural science journalism and scientific innovation had once become research hotspots.

Evaluation has played an important role in facilitating science and technology museums as an effective lifelong learning platform to cultivate scientific citizenship. Framed by sociocultural theory and situated learning theory, this article reviewed the existing theoretical and empirical evaluation studies in science and technology museum education field. Specifically, this article synthesized museum education evaluation from five dimensions, including (1) stakeholders'thoughts and ideas about science and technology museum education, (2) visiting process, (3) visiting effects, (4) factors that impacted museum visitation, and (5) the development of evaluation framework and instruments. This article may bring insights in understanding the development of science and technology museum education and implementing the evaluation of science and technology museum education in the Chinese context.

President Xi Jinping put science popularization and scientific and technological innovation as the same important position. Popularization of science is to popularize scientific knowledge, advocate scientific methods, disseminate scientific ideas, cultivate scientific spirit, promote the application of technology, and build bridges between scientists, engineers, technicians and the public. The performance of science popularization activities includes two aspects: the achievement and the efficiency of science popularization activities. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of popularization activities of science in museums and the essential connotation of the performance of popularization activities of science in museums, this paper tried to establish a performance evaluation model of popularization activities of science in museums, determines the three first-level evaluation indicators of content, organization and influence degree of popularization activities of science in museums, as well as the weights and evaluation criteria of 12 second-level evaluation indicators. The study empirically analysed science popularization activities at Chongqing Natural Museum and Hebei GEO University.

Worksheet is an important learning intervention tool in science education institutes. By carrying out a research in the Nature Exhibition Area at Shanghai Natural History Museum, this study applied the contextual model of learning to analyze, evaluate and redesign worksheets of the exhibition. The research team then conducted the quasi-experiment, which was intended to capture the effect of 3 worksheets on family learning in museum setting. The results show that in the alive animal exhibition: (1) Families without worksheet can proactivly use prior knowledge and life experience to interact closely, but they lacked self-confidence in their own conclusion. (2) Using worksheet that is against the model reduced the family visit time and the number of all types of learning talk. (3) Using worksheets that embody the model helped families to confidently build a more reasonable understanding of the exhibits from multiple perspectives. The natural history museum can display terrarium of alive animals to enrich the exhibition. Contextual model of learning is proved to be an effective model to guide the design and using process of worksheet.

The free opening of science and technology museums has led to a series of changes in visitors structure, service mode and funds deployment of science and technology museums. Based on the current status of temporary exhibitions in science and technology museums, the bottlenecks in the development of temporary exhibitions are clarified. Combining theoretical and practical cases, this paper explored the promotion space of temporary exhibition in terms of theme selection, staff training and financial support in order to explore the temporary exhibition function as an effective supplement to the permanent exhibition and promote the transformation and development of science and technology museum.

Botanical gardens are important destinations for living plant collection, conservation, environmental education and tourism. To enrich the garden experience, many botanical gardens in China developed various Night Hike programs in recent years. However, it hasn't been theoretically assessed for its education processes and outcomes. By employing the means-end theory, 30 Night Hike participants were interviewed at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in order to explore to what extent the educational function and impact upon personal development were achieved. The results indicated the Night Hike's goals included animals, plants, educators and companions. As participants reported, the consequences of the program were that the program enhanced participants' biological knowledge and provided them a novel experience. Participants believed the program are beneficial to their self-satisfaction, personal development and increasing their conservation awareness. Meanwhile, the factors that significantly affected the effectiveness and educational function of the Night Hike were the educator's role, full usage of the variety of senses, and the chances of viewing numbers of novel plants and animals. Generally, Night Hike in botanical gardens is indeed an effective environmental educational activity for the feature of “education via entertainment”.

In this paper, the authors analyzed all the articles pushed by the two WeChat official accounts of “Guokr” and “China Science Communication” in a period of three months. The study analyzed their column setting, updating time, author stability, original and reprinted articles, number of reading and praise, content classification, presentation forms, source of the message, contents' disciplinary distribution, topic and hotspots in the two WeChat official accounts by quantitative and qualitative methods according to the system of evaluation indicators. This paper described the characteristics of the two accounts, especially based on the analysis of three aspects: communication forms, content, and interactions between communicators and users. The paper also summarized some specific characteristics for a good WeChat official account in communicating science with the public.

Social networking platforms such as Weibo, WeChat have developed on a large scale, and have challenged the authority of transmission mechanism of the traditional media. WeChat accounts for science popularization, as a fresh stream, to a certain extent changed the communication effect of the meaningless entertainment content. This study started from the science popularization public WeChat accounts' present developmenting situation, discovered some that the process of communication represented by “clove doctors” has some problems. For example, the existing spread conversion rate is low; The users loyalty is not enough; Market target is not clear; The integrated marketing ability is weak; Content production looks homogeneous. This paper tried to make helpful valuable advice and better solution through the case study of the “clove doctors”.

Based on the current situation that the design of inquiry museum worksheet in domestic science and technology museum emphasises on the spread of science knowledge popularization and ignores the guidance of exhibits operation, and the new science curriculum standard proposed in 2017 still follows the “inquiry-based learning based on scientific inquiry” in the previous standards, science and technology museum should advocate inquiry learning as a special place for scientific communication. The study combined the inquiry model proposed by Suchman with the exploratory elements contained in the design of learning modules for science and technology museums to construct the design framework for inquiry worksheet. Then applied the framework to guide the design of inquiry worksheet. Finally, the study put the inquiry worksheet into practice in order to verify the inquiry worksheet's impact on children. This study also tried to provide practical reference for carrying out “exhibition-based inquiry learning” in science and technology museums, explore the museum to exert a learning function, expand the school education space, and cultivate students to explore learning ability and habits.

As a special method of science popularization and a form of image presentation, digital fulldome science film breaks the narrative rules of traditional film and uses unique camera language. Taking “Immersion feeling” as the core feature, the fulldome film is free from the shackles of “Frame”, and it affects the viewer's attention through the movement of “Viewpoint”, thus create a rich sense of presence and empathy. As a result, the digital fulldome film meets new challenges in many aspects such as the rules of narrative, the guiding of the viewers' attention, and the choice of the film subjects.

To some extent, officials' level of understanding modern science and technology could have influence on their decision-making process. Therefore, officials have been one of the most important groups of audiences of science popularization. However, as it is difficult to arrange the schedule, the scale of science popularization activities targeting officials is usually small. But “The Series of 100 Lectures Given by 100 CAS Members” in 1996, which was organized by China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) was a big activity. This paper investigated the historical process of the activity in order to make suggestions to the future science popularization activities.

This paper systematically reviewed the historical environments and publishing background of astronomical science popularization books in China from 1840 to 1949, and discussed their significance for the dissemination of modern astronomical knowledge. The authors divided this period into two stages with the the Revolution of 1911 as a node. The 1840—1949 period in the late Qing Dynasty was the beginning period of the astronomical science book publishing. The missionaries and Chinese enlightened intellectuals undertook the earliest compilation and publication of astronomical science books. For the first time the nationals came into contact with modern astronomical knowledge. During the Republic of China, returning international students who wished to save the country regarded science education as an important part of national construction and modernization. Although these works did not have the effect they deserved due to the society turmoil. However, it still provided valuable experiences for the later astronomical science popularization writing.