Abstract This article explores the introduction of science writing into the undergraduate classroom. By asking students to write about science for popular audiences, teachers can illuminate the social and cultural aspects of science that are often lost in the complex prose of scientists writing to their peers. Not much has been written about the place of science writing in technical writing classrooms, though some articles focus on the process of training students to be science staff writers for a newspaper or magazine. But teaching science writing goes beyond professionalization. It has to do with a poetics of science that heightens and enhances our appreciation of the world around us.