Tennessee’s science museums have jointly decided to promote vaccines during August, which is the CDC’s National Immunization Awareness Month.
The Science Alliance of Tennessee is a consortium of six nonprofit science museums. Most of their effort entails filling their social media feeds with fact-based information. They also plan to hand out cards explaining mRNA technology and antibodies. The cards have “myth-buster” material about COVID shots:
Myth: Vaccines will make me sick.
Plausible: We might experience some of the same symptoms … the big difference is we recover quickly because there’s no harmful virus in us.
Jennifer Uhll of the Discovery Center in Murfreesboro says the initiative is intentionally broader than COVID to sidestep the politics of the pandemic.
“There’s been a lot of discussion among our peers about: what is our place? What falls in line with our mission?” she says. “Especially Discovery Center, our mission is to engage curious minds to fuel the future. So, we want to make sure we’re educating and not pushing an agenda.”
The Adventure Science Center in Nashville is also participating. The museums have not previously marked National Immunization Awareness Month.
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