The National Science Foundation sponsored my team of U of Arizona students and Tucson community members in its pavilion at the 2014 USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC. [YouTube]
I worked with students and faculty from several universities to support booths with interactive demonstrations of language topics at Family Science Days 2015-20. The American Association for the Advancement of Science used to host this event at its annual meeting as a way to interact with communities in the cities where the meetings occurred. [Vimeo for 2016 event]
Working mainly with U of Arizona students, I organized booths about linguistics at the Tucson Festival of Books and Tucson Meet Yourself various years between 2013 and 2019.
I taught a course on informal science learning in Children’s Museum Tucson in 2016. It was supported by a grant from the U of Arizona Office of Student Engagement. The university students who helped develop the course were Elly Zimmer and Genesis Grijalva; our museum partner was Autumn Rentmeester (now at Ben's Bells). [YouTube]
I've worked with the Wikipedia Education Program: Graduate students in a 2019 course on theories of language development improved several articles (project details here). Undergraduates in a 2012 course on child language worked to improve the Wikipedia article Language acquisition. I also taught a course about Wikipedia in 2024 for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, U of Arizona.Â
Other writing
McKee, C. (2022) Why do people have slips of the tongue? The Conversation.
McKee, C. (2017) Children’s language learning in five words. Planet Word Museum Blog.
McKee, C. (2015) Thanks to the Academy ... Yawn. Huffington Post (Huffpost Entertainment). [This piece was developed through a Public Voices Fellowship with the OpEd Project.]
McKee, C. (2015) Tweak the Americans with Disabilities Act again. Huffington Post (Huffpost Impact). [This piece was developed through a Public Voices Fellowship with the OpEd Project.]
McKee, C. (2015) Lying is everyday occurrence — for famous, rest of us. Arizona Daily Star. [This piece was developed through a Public Voices Fellowship with the OpEd Project.]
Speaking for non-academic audiences
McKee, C. “Lying, language, and linguistics.” Raytheon Tucson Networking Club. Tucson, AZ, June, 2015.
McKee, C. “Tiny talkers.” Contribution to study group Speaking Our Minds, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, U of Arizona, Tucson, October, 2012.
McKee, C. “La teoria linguistica e l’acquisizione della sintassi.” Workshop, Scuola per i Technici della Reabilitazione, Ferrara, Italy, June, 1987.
Howdyshell, M.; Wagner, L.; McKee, C. “Effective communication in the museum space: Understanding funds of knowledge. Association of Science and Technology Centers annual conference; Charlotte, NC; October, 2023.
McKee, C. “¡Hablemos! And so on …” (poster), LingComm21: Communicating Linguistics to Broader Audiences; online: https://lingcomm.org/. April, 2021.
McKee, C.; Wagner, L. “Turn your research into public engagement activities.” Workshop at 2019 Linguistic Institute (July 10, 2019), Davis, CA.
McKee, C.; Rentmeester, A. “Starting small: Launching a museum and university collaboration.” Best of InterActivity 2017 – Association of Children’s Museums annual conference, January, 2018. [This was in a series of webinars repeating the top 10 sessions in the preceding year’s conference.]
McKee, C.; Zimmer, E.; Huang, H.-Y. “Linguistics at festivals” in Linguistics for Everyone: Tools and tips for do-it-yourselfers. Co-organized by J. Maling & B. Pearson. Panel at Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, January, 2015.