The Festival of Tomorrow is the place for science, workshops, and demonstrations in Swindon. This year 47,000 visitors interacted with it. At the Festival Finale, on Saturday 22nd February, we ran I’m a Scientist – Live! with support from STFC. Continue reading
Since 2020 the RI have commissioned an online youth summit on a subject related to the CHRISTMAS LECTURES.
The Summit takes place at the RI and consists of a series of talks, and provocations in the Faraday Theatre interspersed with breakout sessions in various rooms around the building.
The Darwin Tree of Life activity ran from March 2021 to July 2022 and was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The activity featured 8 teams of scientists working on the Darwin Tree of Life project with the goal of sequencing the genomes of all eukaryotic species in Britain and Ireland.
Each year the RI run a youth summit on a subject related to the CHRISTMAS LECTURES. In 2020 it was decided to run the Summit prior to the filming of the lectures so that the views of the delegates could be communicated to the lecturers. However the Covid-19 pandemic intervened and the RI building remained closed to the public.
The decision was taken to bring the summit online and I’m a Scientist was chosen as the platform because of a strong record of safeguarding and working with the RI on the Lectures. Continue reading
With 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.
Slightly. A recent request for help resulted in a surprisingly large number of girls schools responding. We wondered if participating schools were biased along single sex education lines. A quick analysis gave us the following percentages of UK schools taking part: 20.4% of secondary schools 19.9% of mixed schools 27.7% of Girls Schools 19.0% of Boys Schools So we have a slight bias towards girls schools, but as they constitute only 7% of secondary schools, we can live with that bias. And here’s the Venn diagram that illustrates the figures, and illustrates how dreadful venn diagram generators are.
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I found a lot of students were asking questions that weren’t directly related to my work, so initially I kept quiet, but then talking about it with Hannah and the other scientists, and reflecting on the Academy Zone questions made me consider my work in terms of ‘social influence’
Ian, PhD researcher
As part of the ChallengeCPD@Bath project, last year we showed that engaging with school students in I’m a Scientist (IAS) functions as effective, accessible, experiential learning, especially for communication skills.
We wanted to further improve IAS as a training opportunity for researchers. The Academy Zone was created to help participating scientists better understand principles of good public engagement through reflecting on their IAS experience while it was happening. The ultimate goal: help build capacity for effective, high quality, public engagement in the research community. Continue reading
On Tuesday 19th March two shows of I’m a Scientist – Live! came to the stage of the Ridgeway School as part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Bringing Science to Swindon programme. The event helped STFC reach a new audience and engaged school students with the people behind the science funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) councils, all based in their hometown.
In total, 200+ secondary school students from 5 different Swindon schools (Ridgeway, Kingsdown, Abbey Park, Commonweal, and Warneford) attended the shows.
They put their questions to 12 members of the UKRI community, between them representing STFC, EPSRC, BBSRC, NERC and MRC: scientists, engineers and staff from the research council head offices at Polaris House. Continue reading
According to the I’m a Scientist poll in the £50 Note Zone, the scientist who should appear on the new £50 Note is:
Championed by Lydia James and Ryan Cutter, Stephen Hawking won the most votes in our poll; students and members of the public believe he should be the scientist featured on the new £50 Note. Continue reading
We looked at whether taking part helped scientists from the March 2018 event improve their communication skills and if so, explore why IAS worked as experiential training. The results showed scientists became more confident communicating with public audiences and helped them develop effective ways of talking about their work. The opportunity for frequent practise, honest student feedback, and the text based nature of interaction were among the elements highlighted by scientists as particularly helpful. Continue reading
Here are narratives for each of the five interviews carried out as part of the I’m a Scientist element of the ChallengeCPD@Bath project, funded by UKRI. These interviews investigated how I’m a Scientist works as experiential training for scientists communicating their research Continue reading
Project Wrangler Katie was a science teacher before joining the I’m a Scientist team, so has first-hand experience of the intense curriculum pressures teachers face. Here she talks us through how I’m a Scientist benefits your students with 5 reasons why it’s worth allocating lesson time to the activity.
Continue reading
It’s well established that scientists doing I’m a Scientist gain just as many positive outcomes as the students they talk to. Using the Vitae Researcher Development Framework to frame these benefits allows us to articulate them in a way that resonates with universities.
Recently, we surveyed event alumni from centres of doctoral training (CDTs) to quantify the effect of taking part on relevant RDF descriptors. This is part of our ongoing strategy to build relationships with these institutions. In total, 37 alumni who had taken part in I’m a Scientist or I’m an Engineer at least 3 months prior responded. Continue reading
“Many of our students lack confidence in their academic ability so they were buzzing when they realised they can hold their own in a conversation with intelligent, educated people and this helped them realise they are all scientists too!” – Julia Anderson, FE College Biology Lecturer
This general further education college is split across 3 sites in a large, post-industrial, non-university town. Students at the college took part in the I’m a Scientist Immune System and Genes Zones in March 2018. Julia tells us how meaningful engagement with the scientists increased her students’ confidence. Continue reading
“Traditionally, not many of our students go on to university. I’m a Scientist helps by allowing students to relate to scientists and helping them see the value of studying at a higher level.”
– Mark McNally, Science Teacher
A mixed 2-19 academy, where over two thirds of the school population are students from disadvantaged backgrounds, took part in I’m a Scientist in March 2018. Mark tells us how the activity helped interest his students in science careers and consider higher education.
“As we are a remote rural community we do not have a huge variety of careers on our doorstep but these events help to bring them closer to pupils. More students should be getting these funded opportunities across the UK.”
– Emily Tulloch, Science teacher on the island of Unst.
The most northerly school in the UK is located in one of our most distant areas in the Shetland Isles. Emily tells us how I’m a Scientist allowed her remote students to explore a range of STEM careers and increased motivation to learn science. Continue reading
“It was a really easy project to engage with for both children and teachers; it only took me about 30 minutes to prepare for all 3 lessons. I was pleasantly surprised with just how excited students were to get responses from serious adults about their work and the adults’ interests.” – Vicky Heslop, Year 6 teacher
A junior school that meets our widening participation criteria took part in the Climate Zone of I’m a Scientist for the first time in March 2018 with their three Year 6 classes. The activity broadened student aspirations, improved enquiry skills and challenged their perceptions of scientists.
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
Science Capital is a concept that measures the combination of experiences, personal connections, knowledge and attitudes that contribute to how much a young person identifies as a “science person”.
The ASPIRES researchers identified eight dimensions of Science Capital, including scientific literacy, science-related attitudes, values and dispositions, and knowledge about the transferability of science. I’m a Scientist aims to contribute to young people’s Science Capital through interactions with real STEM professionals. In particular, focusing on three dimensions of Science Capital: knowing people in science-related jobs, scientific literacy, and knowledge about the transferability of science.
Thousands of school students meet scientists through I’m a Scientist every year, and they ask thousands of questions. In June 2017, over 3,000 students took part, asking scientists more than 2,500 questions in the ASK section alone. This is also the event that we implemented our question coding system across all the zones to see what students are asking about. This all got us thinking: Do students from different types of schools ask more or less of certain question types? We’ve identified two groups we want to look at: Under-served: Schools more than 30 minutes travel time from a major research HEI Widening Participation: Schools with an above average number of students eligible for free school meals Taking the questions from the I’m a Scientist zones in June 2017 it appears that: Overall, the split of questions is similar across all groups of students Under-served students ask more “science topics” … Continue reading
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.
