Science Cafés are part of a unique national informal education outreach initiative for NOVA ScienceNow, a PBS science series. The project's special focus is to reach new audiences—both on air and off—especially those younger than traditional PBS watchers and those not usually drawn to science programming. The Science Café initiative involves more personal, face-to-face engagement between the public and the scientific community, the impact of which may prove especially profound and lasting. Science Cafés share two key goals with the National Science Education Standards: that participants experience the richness and excitement of knowing about and understanding the natural world, and that they engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about scientific and technological ideas.