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Completed
Curiosity Clusters
FunderUK Research and Innovation
Funder Contribution £14,854.00
Duration30 Mar 2021 - 29 Mar 2022
Funded underSTFC
Project codeST/V002171/1
Open Access mandatePublications: NoResearch data: No
Identifiers
Project timeline100%
Description
- To inspire and empower young people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to collaborate with university researchers and participate in creative science learning activities and research. By promoting wellbeing, knowledge, skills and agency in the development of co-created content, we can overcome barriers of educational inequity in STEM and encourage more young people to pursue interests and careers in STFC research areas. We The Curious has a track record in delivering participative programming activities with diverse and disadvantaged audiences and with university researchers. In this project we will bring these two groups together, to co-create educational STEM resources, strengthen our existing public engagement programme, engage young people with STFC achievements and make our science centre programme more inclusive. This project will provide new creative learning experiences for young people, unlocking the excitement of STFC research and reframing STEM as an imaginative, collaborative, rewarding career choice. By handing over decision making to audiences themselves, they will learn new skills in science communication, content development and collaborative working whilst STFC researchers will gain an opportunity to see their work from an audience-driven perspective. - To broaden the impact and reach of our existing public engagement in research programme, highlighting STFC achievements and the value of STEM to the UK. A particular focus on astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics and solar and planetary science responds to audience feedback that they would like to see more space-themed content in our online and in-venue offer. Our existing public engagement programme - Open Source Science - seeks to go further than simply providing a platform for researchers to tell the public about their research. We create unique opportunities for people of all ages to contribute to active research. By establishing things that researchers have in common with young people - particularly their shared ability to ask powerful questions - the research process becomes demystified. When young people find role models in STEM who they can identify with, they are far more likely to pro-actively seek out the ways in which science learning is relevant to them. Interactions with researchers can also change perceptions of science - we have seen how children have changed the language they use to describe science after working with a researcher, from using nouns like 'lab' and 'test tube' to using more behavioral adjectives like 'creative' and 'curious'. We have over 10,000 questions asked of us by the public, the majority from children and young people. We would like to use these as a starting point for our future programme development. Our initial assessment has shown that questions about space are by far the most frequently asked. We have also made a concerted effort in the collection of these curious questions, to ensure proportionate representation of the bottom 10% of the indices of multiple deprivation, in addition to question gathering activities with other underrepresented groups (BAME, disabled people, young people aged 13-25), making this a resource for the city that is representative and inclusive. The social and economic landscape has rapidly shifted in the past few months and is only likely to continue to change in the future. We The Curious must digitise more of its outputs than it does currently if it is to continue to pursue its diverse participation strategy and reach new audiences. It is more important now than ever that science centres consult with audiences every step of the way and involve them in decision making and evaluation processes, to ensure they are keeping ahead of audiences' educational and social needs.
Partners (2)
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- To inspire and empower young people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to collaborate with university researchers and participate in creative science learning activities and research. By promoting wellbeing, knowledge, skills and agency in the development of co-created content, we can overcome barriers of educational inequity in STEM and encourage more young people to pursue interests and careers in STFC research areas. We The Curious has a track record in delivering participative programming activities with diverse and disadvantaged audiences and with university researchers. In this project we will bring these two groups together, to co-create educational STEM resources, strengthen our existing public engagement programme, engage young people with STFC achievements and make our science centre programme more inclusive. This project will provide new creative learning experiences for young people, unlocking the excitement of STFC research and reframing STEM as an imaginative, collaborative, rewarding career choice. By handing over decision making to audiences themselves, they will learn new skills in science communication, content development and collaborative working whilst STFC researchers will gain an opportunity to see their work from an audience-driven perspective. - To broaden the impact and reach of our existing public engagement in research programme, highlighting STFC achievements and the value of STEM to the UK. A particular focus on astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics and solar and planetary science responds to audience feedback that they would like to see more space-themed content in our online and in-venue offer. Our existing public engagement programme - Open Source Science - seeks to go further than simply providing a platform for researchers to tell the public about their research. We create unique opportunities for people of all ages to contribute to active research. By establishing things that researchers have in common with young people - particularly their shared ability to ask powerful questions - the research process becomes demystified. When young people find role models in STEM who they can identify with, they are far more likely to pro-actively seek out the ways in which science learning is relevant to them. Interactions with researchers can also change perceptions of science - we have seen how children have changed the language they use to describe science after working with a researcher, from using nouns like 'lab' and 'test tube' to using more behavioral adjectives like 'creative' and 'curious'. We have over 10,000 questions asked of us by the public, the majority from children and young people. We would like to use these as a starting point for our future programme development. Our initial assessment has shown that questions about space are by far the most frequently asked. We have also made a concerted effort in the collection of these curious questions, to ensure proportionate representation of the bottom 10% of the indices of multiple deprivation, in addition to question gathering activities with other underrepresented groups (BAME, disabled people, young people aged 13-25), making this a resource for the city that is representative and inclusive. The social and economic landscape has rapidly shifted in the past few months and is only likely to continue to change in the future. We The Curious must digitise more of its outputs than it does currently if it is to continue to pursue its diverse participation strategy and reach new audiences. It is more important now than ever that science centres consult with audiences every step of the way and involve them in decision making and evaluation processes, to ensure they are keeping ahead of audiences' educational and social needs.
