Science Engagement

June 2013 Moderator Job Vacancies

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an award-winning online event allowing teenagers to interact with real live scientists. We’re looking for 6 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 17th to the 28th of June 2013. We will also be running 2 zones in I’m an Engineer at the same time, which will also need moderating. Your key responsibilities will be will be: hosting/moderating live chats approving questions looking after your zones logging and keeping track of great questions, comments and dialogue checking the site for errors and inappropriate content helping to run the site It’s actually a lot of fun as the students (and scientists) are quick and funny and full of energy. And hey, promoting science engagement is a good thing. What we’d like from you.. You should be bright, thoughtful, pick stuff up easily, ideally with an interest in … Continue reading →

Posted on May 13, 2013 by in Event News, IAS Event, Science Engagement | Comments Off on June 2013 Moderator Job Vacancies

Who are you Twitter?

We’re always evaluating the online STEM enrichment activity, I’m a Scientist, to explore its impact and how it can be improved. Check out latest evaluation posts. As we prepped for our Science Communication Conference 2013 session on how we evaluate I’m a Scientist, the occasional sidetrack leads to interesting stuff. A while back we used Tony Hirst‘s scripts and know how to download our twitter followers network. We’ve used Gephi to map out the clusters within our network which helps us work out who is following us and how diverse our network is. We were delighted to see an Australia cluster thanks to our friends in Adelaide. More about that later. Another useful benefit of downloading your followers is the ability to search their bios to find specific followers who are interested in certain subjects. This evening we identified 83 followers with “food” in their bio. We’ll be contacting some of them (excluding those … Continue reading →

Posted on April 18, 2013 by admin in Evaluation, Science Engagement | Comments Off on Who are you Twitter?

Valeria shares her I’m a Scientist experience

Last Summer Valeria Senigaglia, a researcher working with dolphins in the Philippines, took part in I’m a Scientist’s Animal Behaviour Zone. Valeria enjoyed the experience so much that she dedicated a blog post to it. I didn’t win but I had so much fun! It was challenging to explain complicated theory in few simple words and some of questions were so advanced I had to look it up myself. However it does remind you why you enjoy this work so much, by putting the research in perspective. […] It was the perfect chance to exchange ideas and information with some peers. Especially since scientists are usually secluded in small windowless rabbit holes, also called offices, and have few chances to share experiences and opinions, even less in an informal setting as it was this event. […] I highly recommend my colleagues to participate as well. Especially because you have fun in doing … Continue reading →

Posted on March 6, 2013 by in Project News, Science Engagement, Scientists | Comments Off on Valeria shares her I’m a Scientist experience

March 2013 Moderator Job Vacancies

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an award-winning online event allowing teenagers to interact with real live scientists. We’re looking for 4 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 11th to the 22nd of March 2013. We will also be running a zone in I’m an Engineer at the same time, which will also need moderating. Your key responsibilities will be will be: hosting/moderating live chats approving questions checking the site for errors and inappropriate content helping to run the site It’s actually a lot of fun as the students (and scientists) are quick and funny and full of energy. And hey, promoting science engagement is a good thing. What we’d like from you.. You should be bright, pick stuff up easily, ideally with an interest in science engagement. You’ll have great attention to detail and will enjoy being online, perhaps have … Continue reading →

Posted on February 11, 2013 by in Event News, IAS Event, Science Engagement | Comments Off on March 2013 Moderator Job Vacancies

We’re oversubscribed with teachers wanting to take part in March

We run I’m a Scientist 3 times each year – March, June & November. The March events are always busy and popular with teachers. It coincides with National Science & Engineering Week and the timing fits in well with schemes of work. Thanks to more funding we’ve added 2 more themed zones – a Digital Zone and a Food Science Zone (more on these later this week in another post). Despite these zones creating 50 extra class places we weren’t prepared for just how oversubscribed we would be this time round. 11 zones with 25 classes in each zone gives 275 class spaces up for grabs. 142 teachers asked for 374 classes between them. Making the event oversubscribed by 36%. So, how have we allocated classes? Give as many teachers as possible places, ie give fewer classes to more teachers Cap the number of classes per teacher at 5 Try … Continue reading →

Posted on January 23, 2013 by in Event News, IAS Event, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off on We’re oversubscribed with teachers wanting to take part in March

Space Zone winner Paul Higgins on Science Calling!

Paul Higgins from Trinity College Dublin, won the Space Zone in I’m a Scientist, Ireland this November. He was interviewed by Maria Delaney for sciencecalling.com, scroll down to have a listen.. We put this up, not just because it’s awesome, but because Paul explains perfectly the purpose and point of I’m a Scientist; the importance of outreach, that it’s not just beneficial for students, but for scientists too.. And obviously, how much fun it all is. Congratulations Paul! “I’ve always has this fear of having to talk to primary school students as I think they’re going to tear me apart or ask hard questions I don’t know and they won’t like my answers or something, so I think this is a really good way to get scientists to realise that it’s actually not that scary and they actually are interested in science. If you’re excited they’ll be excited. So it’s … Continue reading →

Posted on December 13, 2012 by in International, Project News, Science Engagement | Comments Off on Space Zone winner Paul Higgins on Science Calling!

Job Vacancies

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an award-winning online event allowing teenagers to interact with real live scientists. We’re looking for 5 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 12th to the 23rd of March. I’m an Engineer is launched at the same time and also needs moderating! Your job would be hosting/moderating live chats, approving questions, checking the site for errors and inappropriate content and helping to run the site. It’s actually a lot of fun as the young people are sparky and funny and full of energy. And hey, promoting science engagement is a good thing. You should be bright, pick stuff up easily, ideally with an interest in science engagement. You’ll have great attention to detail and will enjoy being online. The site is all built on WordPress, so if you’ve used that the techy stuff will be pretty … Continue reading →

Posted on February 27, 2012 by in IAS Event, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off on Job Vacancies

Evaluating the Impacts of engagement

How can we evaluate the impact on students taking part in I’m a Scientist? Can we measure if they’re more likely to take a STEM subject at A Level? If they’re more likely to study science at University? How should we use the large amounts of data generated by online projects? How can we share our evaluation in a more useful way? These are just some of the questions we’re trying to answer about evaluating I’m a Scientist and other Gallomanor run projects. Judging from the first in a series of seminars looking at Evaluating Impacts of Public Engagement and Non-Formal Learning, last Friday 4th November, others are thinking along the same lines. The Core Issues & Debates seminar kicked off the series at the Dana Centre in London, and bought together a range of researchers, evaluators and learning and communication practitioners. Future seminars focus on areas such as how … Continue reading →

Posted on November 9, 2011 by in Evaluation, IAS Event, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off on Evaluating the Impacts of engagement

Science Communication Conference: call for proposals

The British Science Association have asked us for a guest blog spot to promote their conference. The theme is ‘online science engagement’ and we rule at that:-) (Don’t believe me? Check what happens if you google online science engagement. Four of the top links are about IAS. Yes, you’re right, I do deserve a raise, don’t I?) Naturally the I’m a Scientist team will be proposing a session on what we’ve learnt about online engagement by running this event. Hopefully we’ll see you there! The Wellcome Trust and the Science in Society team at the British Science Association are working in partnership to organise the 2011 Science Communication Conference taking place on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 May 2011 at Kings Place, London. The Conference addresses the key issues facing science communicators in the UK. Each year brings together people who are involved in public engagement – a diverse group … Continue reading →

Posted on November 22, 2010 by in Science Engagement | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Science Communication Conference: call for proposals

The arguments for young people's involvement in decisions about science funding

The following is a version of an article I wrote for the British Science Association’s magazine in May 2009. It puts forward some arguments for why I think young people should be involved in decisions about science funding. I’m posting it now because it’s relevant to conversations we were having on twitter yesterday. There are further arguments, not covered here, which are that having to explain their work and its implications to teenagers helps scientists think them through. And that kids are good bullshit detectors. I might get round to writing a post on those aspects one day. “Interesting but badly paid work on offer” said the email. As an out-of-work TV researcher, paid work sounded good and interesting was even better. I signed up for two weeks as an online moderator for a youth engagement project called I’m a Councillor, Get me out of Here! The event got young … Continue reading →

Posted on October 28, 2010 by in Science Engagement | Comments Off on The arguments for young people's involvement in decisions about science funding

Beyond Blogging event teaser

Do you think science is perfect, or is there something about it you want to change? And can the internet help you do it? Is the peer review system broken? Why do we still publish research papers? What are the problems with the system? What’s the proper relationship between government and scientific advisors? Are there barriers (that we could change) to women excelling in science, or are they just not as good at it? What about ethnic minorities and people from different socioeconomic groups? How can scientists explain the value of their work (and funding it)? Are scientists answering (or asking) the questions that really matter? Are there ways that scientists could gain by communicating better with others in their field? With scientists in other fields? With people outside science? Fold.it and Galaxy Zoo are great. Are there other areas where people could get involved in actually taking part in … Continue reading →

Posted on October 1, 2010 by in Project News, Science Education, Science Engagement | Comments Off on Beyond Blogging event teaser

Beyond Blogging: Science engagement online can do more!

I’m making this very quick post as twitter is awash today with people protesting about Vince Cable’s remarks on proposed science budget cuts. Back in July Shane and I went to Alice Bell’s excellent talkfest on science blogging. Shane then wrote this typically provocative post about how the bloggers weren’t being ambitious enough – why did nobody want to change the world? Blogs are fantastic, not to diss blogs at all, but there’s a lot more that can be done online than writing blog posts. We decided that instead of just whinging, we should put our money where our mouth is, and do something to help! We are now planning a workshop/get-together called Beyond Blogging. This would bring together people from the worlds of science, science communication and engagement, with some of the hackers and doers involved in civil society online engagement, to see what interesting ideas and projects could … Continue reading →

Posted on September 8, 2010 by in Science Engagement | Comments Off on Beyond Blogging: Science engagement online can do more!

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What can you do?

I want to take part with my class ❯

I want to take part as a scientist ❯

I want to find out about funding I’m a Scientist ❯

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.