Author Archives: modjosh

COVID-19: Students’ questions

Word cloud of themes students ASK about COVID-19With schools across the UK due to close this week, the impact on the daily lives of students and young people of the COVID-19 outbreak is clear. We wanted to do a little analysis to look at what young people are concerned about, what are they asking?

Finding ourselves in the midst of the March I’m a Scientist (IAS) and I’m an Engineer (IAE) events, means that for the past few weeks, young people across the UK and Ireland have had the opportunity to ask any questions they like to groups of scientists and engineers.

Continue reading →

Posted on March 19, 2020 by modjosh in Evaluation, News. Comments Off on COVID-19: Students’ questions

School engagement in STEM enrichment: Effect of school location

In recent years funders of public engagement and outreach activities have made a priority of reaching underserved audiences.

Wherever we looked we found anecdotal evidence that while, as a sector we were becoming increasingly effective at reaching schools in deprived parts of our metropolitan areas, rural communities continued to miss out.

But anecdotal data only gets you so far. We wanted to find out just how much the more remote schools were missing out. We also wanted to know what constitutes a remote school in this context. Continue reading →

Posted on November 30, 2017 by modjosh in Evaluation, News, Widening Participation. Comments Off on School engagement in STEM enrichment: Effect of school location

Enquiry Zone: Students as scientists

Some say there are no new ideas, just new interpretations of old ideas: primary school students designed the Blackawton Bees paper with the help of a parent scientist; citizen science runs online at scale with Galaxy Zoo; the BBC, with Terrific Scientific, help primary schools conduct their experiments. There is an idea missing in this panoply: School students helping to design and run a new experiment at scale. In March 2017 we ran the Wellcome funded Enquiry Zone, a zone created with one fundamental question: Could we use an I’m a Scientist zone to give hundreds of school students the chance to help design an experiment, which they could then carry out themselves? Yes, we could. And what’s more, it’s clear there is value in giving students input at all stages of the project. It gives students ownership over research, and they gain real insight into how science works. What happened … Continue reading →

Posted on November 23, 2017 by modjosh in News. Tagged . Comments Off on Enquiry Zone: Students as scientists

Travel Time

Last summer we wrote a post about using distance as a measure for identifying widening participation schools.Since then, we have completed our map (pictured) of schools in the UK which lie farther than 25 miles from a major research institution. In July we mentioned that travel time, in place of as-the-crow-flies distance may be a better measure of accessibility. We want to look at schools far from HEIs as these schools are more difficult for scientists and researchers to reach; a PhD student is much more likely to travel 20 minutes to a school to give a workshop, than take out an entire day to visit a school an hour away. While distance does provide a reasonable measure for accessibility, it does miss out some of the nuance in more rural or coastal areas. Our measure could be improved. We got in touch with iGeolise, who specialise in travel time data, … Continue reading →

Posted on February 23, 2017 by modjosh in Widening Participation. Comments Off on Travel Time

Demand vs. Capacity: March 2017

This afternoon we apologised to 47 schools, telling teachers that we have not been able to offer their students a place in I’m a Scientist this March. The graph shows the number of class places requested by teachers (box outline), against the funded places we were able to run (colour-fill) for each event. Demand has consistently exceeded places available for the past 8 events; indeed for the past 5 events, we could have run double the number of zones we did. Double the number of young people becoming more enthused about science. Double the number of scientists taking part in “the best crash course in science communication”. Our limiting factor is funding. We need more funding to run more zones and increase the capacity of the events. Unfortunately the Royal Society of Chemistry has withdrawn their funding planned for this year and the STFC funding we had has not been renewed, meaning spaces for chemistry and … Continue reading →

Posted on February 3, 2017 by modjosh in Capacity, News. Comments Off on Demand vs. Capacity: March 2017

An update on widening participation

In September last year we wrote about Widening Participation. We’ve refined our criteria a little since then; below is our definition of a widening participation school.

We’ve decided on these criteria because they match, in broad terms, the kinds of criteria universities use to identify widening participation students.

A widening participation school is…

In England and Wales

  • A school in an area where POLAR3 is in the first quintile, or…
  • A school where the % of students eligible for free school meals is higher than 41%, or…
  • A school where the % of students achieving 5 grades A*–C at KS4 is below 45%, or…
  • A school where the % of students level 4 in reading, writing, and maths at KS2 is below 45%, or…
  • A school more than 25 miles from their nearest HEI.

Continue reading →

Posted on July 15, 2016 by modjosh in News, Project News, School, Science Education, Widening Participation. Comments Off on An update on widening participation

June 2016 Winner Blogs

After every event we ask the winning scientists to write a short blog to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what the June Winners had to say… Jonny, Antibiotics Zone I was super nervous in the run up to the the result because I really didn’t think I would win! Originally, I thought it was going to be difficult to juggle my time in the lab and devoting time to answering questions and participating in live chats. With some careful organisation things worked out really well and as soon as the questions started pouring in, I became addicted! I hope you all learned as much as I did! Read more Laura, Catalysis Zone The questions … Continue reading →

Posted on July 6, 2016 by modjosh in News, Scientists. Comments Off on June 2016 Winner Blogs

Demand vs. Capacity — An update for June 2016

Graph of I'm a Scientist UK class requests by event in academic year — March 2013 to June 2016 Any avid readers of our project blog — there must be at least one of you — will have noticed we’ve written a lot recently about our increasing demand for classes, and our over-subscription rates.

In January, we published some numbers. Since then we have run the March 2016 event, and finalised class places in the June 2016 event. Here are some updated numbers:

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Posted on May 23, 2016 by modjosh in Capacity, Evaluation, IAS Event, News, Project News. Comments Off on Demand vs. Capacity — An update for June 2016

On student activity and simplified registrations

TL;DR: We made the site easier for students to access and the proportion of our audience engaging increased. Like any company, we have a set of Key Performance Indicators which we use to keep an eye on how well we’re doing. One of those KPIs (professionals use abbreviations) is the percentage of active students during an event, what we will call, %AS. %AS shows the number of students who log in to the site, and go on to — at the very least — ask a question, write a line of text in a live chat, cast a vote, or leave a comment. Basically, it shows the proportion of our audience who are actively engaging with the activity. In July 2014 Rosie posted a message on our project management app of choice, pointing out that the %AS for the previous events had been falling to the level it was at during the … Continue reading →

Posted on May 23, 2016 by modjosh in Evaluation, Event News, IAS Event, News, Project News. Comments Off on On student activity and simplified registrations

Increasing demand and charges for independent schools

Demand for our activities has been slowly increasing. We regularly have more classes requested than we are able to accommodate and we have to limit the number of classes we offer teachers. In November 2015, for the first time we had to start turning down teachers, unable to limit classes to a point where every teacher who applied could be given a place. This increasing demand for classes has lead us to prioritise schools where we believe our activities can add the most value, where online STEM engagement can make the most difference. Most of our funders are prioritising underserved audiences. For us that means schools that traditionally don’t send many students on to Higher Education or are located disadvantageously for STEM engagement activities. Sadly this means that some schools who have been able to take up places in the past will not be able to take part without additional funding. Beginning … Continue reading →

Posted on April 11, 2016 by modjosh in Capacity, News, Project News, School, Science Education, Teachers. Comments Off on Increasing demand and charges for independent schools

¡Allá vamos! I’m a Scientist goes to Spain

We always like to spread the I’m a Scientist love. The event currently runs in Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, the United States, and of course here in the UK. This school year we are adding another country (and language!) to the I’m a Scientist map: Somos Científicos (We Are Scientists) in Spain! The first “Somos Científicos” event will run 11th – 22th April 2016, involving Spanish schools and scientists. The project site is already live, so head to somoscientificos.es for more information or if you just want to test out your ‘conversational’ (according to your CV) level of Spanish. Now any fledgling project needs both schools and scientists to be a success. We know we have Spanish friends who have taken part in I’m a Scientist UK in the past, and we have a small favour to ask of you: Please spread the word about Somos Cientificos to your colleagues, friends, family … Continue reading →

Posted on October 13, 2015 by modjosh in News. Comments Off on ¡Allá vamos! I’m a Scientist goes to Spain

I cannot express in words how much I’d recommend this to any PhD student, science technician or any academic with time on their hands. It is certainly the most rewarding experience I’ve been part of. Jess Wade, I’m a Scientist, June 2015

Posted on September 17, 2015 by modjosh in Quote. Comments Off on

Both my classes did their chat sessions this morning, while they are usually fairly apathetic about anything they don’t have to do, they surprised themselves by getting interested.  That alone is impressive. The best thing is that they have seen (and were talking afterwards) about how so-and-so likes cats, and that guy is a musicians as well, and so on. Scientists are normal people who like pizza, but are also really into finding things out.  Actually quite like the students, really.  I guess that’s the point of the exercise, but it’s good to see. Teacher, I’m a Scientist June 2015

Posted on September 17, 2015 by modjosh in Quote. Comments Off on

The pupils loved the live chats, they still can’t believe they were ‘allowed’ to talk to real scientists!! Teacher, I’m a Scientist, March 2015

Posted on September 17, 2015 by modjosh in Quote. Comments Off on

Widening Participation

One of our long term goals is to increase the number of Widening Participation schools taking part in our projects, but to do this, there’s a fairly fundamental question to ask first: What is a widening participation school? Without establishing what would count as a widening participation school, it’s difficult to target these schools, and even more difficult to evaluate how well we’re doing in increasing the number taking part. Time then, to set out some criteria. A Widening Participation School is… A school where the % of students achieving grades A*–C at GCSE is below 45%, or… A school where the % of students eligible for free school meals is higher than 41%, or… A school in an area where POLAR3 is in the first quintile, or… An SEN School Independent schools will not be counted. In 2013, a school with more than 41.6% of students eligible for free school meals would put … Continue reading →

Posted on September 4, 2015 by modjosh in School, Widening Participation. Comments Off on Widening Participation

“I’m a Scientist is definitely the most fun I’ve had in my lab coat”

After every event we ask the zone winners to write a short blog post to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what they had to say… Jess, Colour Zone I’m a Scientist is definitely the most fun I’ve had in my lab coat. The questions were incredible, totally unpredictable and the scope was well beyond that going on academic circles; by the final I’d tried to prepare a few ‘go-to’ answers, “What is colour?”, “What happened during the big bang?”, “Will we ever cure cancer?..but I couldn’t predict a single one! After the 30 minute live chats my fingers were tingling so much I had to delay measuring polymers in the clean room. I cannot … Continue reading →

Posted on July 27, 2015 by modjosh in Event News, IAS Event, News. Comments Off on “I’m a Scientist is definitely the most fun I’ve had in my lab coat”

Launching questions into the Thermosphere

From the effects of solar radiation on people living on the International Space Station, to opinions on space travel; there are few topics which inspire quite so many questions as Space. Another question, asked probably in every live chat in every Space Zone we’ve run: “Have you ever been to space?” The answer has always been “no”… Until now. This year, Tim Peake will become the first British ESA astronaut to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) and thanks to funding from the UK Space Agency and the support of the European Space Agency, our latest project will bring the buzz and excitement of Tim’s mission into classrooms all over the UK. Our latest project gives students the opportunity to put their questions to the people behind Tim’s mission — members of mission control, researchers with experiments running on the ISS, trainers, and scientists and engineers involved in the design … Continue reading →

Posted on July 15, 2015 by modjosh in News. Comments Off on Launching questions into the Thermosphere

Chemistry outreach secure for 3 years

I’m a Scientist is about showing the diversity of science to students and whilst we’ve always been strong with biologists and physicists until 2015 we were a little light on chemists. So we are especially delighted that the Royal Society of Chemistry have decided to support our project over 3 years through to the end of 2017. We will be running 9 zones across the UK and Ireland using this funding. Part of the arrangement is that we’ll be including RSC members in five of our General Zones to show school students the full breadth of science. Rio Hutchings, from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Outreach team, says: We’re really proud to be involved in inspiring scientific discovery in a whole range of ways and I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an excellent example. It’s great for both students and for putting science communicators through their paces, … Continue reading →

Posted on July 13, 2015 by modjosh in News, Project News. Comments Off on Chemistry outreach secure for 3 years

Understanding Animal Research – Google Hangout

Before our most recent June 2014 I’m a Scientist event we partnered with Understanding Animal Research to run a Google Hangout for scientists who work with animals. Students often ask the scientists for their views on animal testing, and we want to help give scientists the confidence to be open and talk about working with animals in their research. John Meredith, Education Manager at UAR, ran this session with six scientists who were taking part in I’m a Scientist the following week: The A word: how to talk about animals in medical research  This informal webinar presented by Understanding Animal Research will look at how and why we should talk about animals in medical research. It will cover current public attitudes to animal research, the facts and figures, the value of openness and how to answer the tricky questions or deal with confrontation. There will be plenty of time for questions … Continue reading →

Posted on August 6, 2014 by modjosh in Evaluation, IAS Event, News. Comments Off on Understanding Animal Research – Google Hangout

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What can you do?

I want to take part with my class ❯

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What is I’m a Scientist?

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an online activity where school students get to meet and interact with scientists.

It’s a competition between scientists, where the students are the judges.

Students challenge the scientists over intense, fast-paced, online live Chats. Then they Ask the scientists all the questions they want to, and Vote for their favourite scientist to win a prize of £500 to communicate their work with the public.