While Science notes sociologists studying the Woman's March on Washington view The March for Science as an opportunity to quantify politicization, Science fails to explain how the event is to be deconvoluted from Earth Day celebrations that have been taking place on the same day since 1970:
"For most participants, next week’s March for Science (M4S) will be a chance to step away from the lab and join a public outpouring of support for evidence-based science. For sociologist Dana Fisher and a handful of other scientists who do survey research, however, the event will be another day at the office, as they plan to query those attending the demonstrations.
Fisher studies protests and climate politics. And on 22 April she will be leading a team of 16 faculty members and students from the University of Maryland in College Park who will commute to downtown Washington, D.C., to gather data from the crowd assembled on the National Mall for the flagship U.S. march. Fisher hopes that more than 500 people will complete a two-page survey asking what brought them to the event, their level of political activism, and the nature of their work.
A different team, led by political sociologist Michael Heaney of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, also wants to explore the political identities of the marchers. Their approach will require a six-page survey, and Heaney says he’ll be ecstatic if 250 people wade through it.
A third group wants to explore scientific norms, that is, what marchers think is appropriate political behavior by scientists. The four-person team, led by political scientist Michael Xenos of the University of Wisconsin in Madison and deployed by graduate student April Eichmeier, hopes to engage some 200 participants.
ScienceInsider has also identified a fourth group of researchers who hope to study the march without actually being there in person. The team, from nearby George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia, are asking organizers to help them recruit participants for a survey by sending out a note to the march's email list and social media followers."
