GIRLS INSPIRED TO GET INTO SCIENCE

Northampton | Anglia - ITV News: " GIRLS INSPIRED TO GET INTO SCIENCE
Northampton: Teenage girls encouraged to consider a career in science and engineering
They've seen fireballs, heard deafening explosions and heard the personal experiences of one of Britain's most famous female motorbike champions and now they're being encouraged to follow their dreams.

Around 100 14-year-old girls have spent time this week at the University of Northampton taking part in the 'Girls Going Global' event which aims to encourage more women into science and engineering.

Report from ITV News Anglia's Russell Hookey

'via Blog this'

UN celebrates two years of Lab_13 at Irchester Primary School

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/un-celebrates-two-years-of-lab-13-at-irchester-primary-school

​​​The events focussed on science and technology as part of the celebration of two years of the primary school’s Lab_13 (@Lab_13Irchester). The lab is a dedicated science space in the School which is aimed to drive the imagination and curiosity of the students with a Scientist-in-Residence, Jennifer Hogan, in support.

Tricia Goodchild, STEM Diversity Co-Ordinator at the University of Northampton said; “The children are wonderful, really interested in STEM subjects, enthusiastic and work hard to sustain this area not only with their peers but throughout the school.”

The University has been supported Lab_13 for the past two years in various ways and this was a culmination of all the activities that have taken place. 

The workshops that took place by members of the University included investigating the hidden world through a Thermal Imaging camera; wind-power experiments; building towers with spaghetti and marshmallows; leather as a material; 3D imaging; drawing ‘bots’ and investigating germs.

Dr Scott Turner, the School of Science and Technology’s Widening Participation and Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator said; “Lab_13 is a great idea, and always a positive experience working with them.

Dr Gemma Marsden, Lecturer in Molecular Bioscience conducted scientific experiments with the children in order to see how clean or unclean their room was.

She said; “I had a wonderful experience working with Lab_13.  It was great to be met with such overwhelming enthusiasm about science and I hope the students enjoyed finding out how clean their class room was.”

Evaluating impact in the REF

Taken from: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2013/name,81708,en.html

"An evaluation of the rewards and challenges for institutions in preparing submissions detailing the impact of their research for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) is due to start shortly.

HEFCE has commissioned consultants, RAND Europe to undertake the comprehensive evaluation, which will look at the benefit and burden associated with impact submission preparation, recommend possible refinements of the process for future exercises, and identify good practice across the sector.

The evaluation will look at rewards and challenges relating to impact submissions among different types of higher education institution, and across the range of disciplines covered by the REF, by working with a sample group of around 18 institutions. Initial work will begin in May, and the main phase of work with institutions will start in December 2013.

This evaluation represents the first of a two-stage process to evaluate the impact element in the REF. The second stage will focus on the assessment of impact. The outcomes of the two-stage evaluation will be reported in 2015, and will inform policy development for the next REF exercise." (HEFCE,2013)

To go to the HEFCE site click here.

Related sites:

• How to measure impact : http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/what/measuring-impact
• Public Engagement help: http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/how

Enhancing STEM Public Engagement Skills

Ed Drewitt, know for his involvement with the Bristol Dinosaur Project, University of Bristol (www.thebristoldinosaurproject.org.uk) and Nicholas Garrick from Director of Lighting up Learning Limited (www.lightinguplearning.com ) facilitated a lively, interactive and very fun CPD session on Public Engagement with Primary schools at the school of Science and Technology, University of Northampton, UK on 8th February 2013.

The audience was made of undergraduates, research students and staff from across the The University of Northampton (and also a colleague from the Open University). All came together to look at how they could offer their ideas for activities or outcomes of their research (not matter what their research area) to schools in general . Feedback from talking to participants was very positive; with a great number of student-lead potential activities being discussed in groups and some staff considering how some of their research may be used as outreach activities.

For me the take home messages from the session was - 

• be aware of what is happening in schools and some of their needs; but do something you are interested in; 
• think about how that could be delivered in schools (possibly across a whole range of age groups);
• but DO NOT tell teachers how to use it in their curriculum, they can work that out for their own particular case.

Last year The University of Northampton (TUoN) took part in Ed and Nick's Enhancing STEM Academics' Public Engagement Skills adopter programme sponsored by HE STEM South West Spoke to take concepts from their earlier work and for these to be applied in the outreach activity of other Universities.  This involvement lead to Ed and Nick offering this half day session to the The University of Northampton and other Universities involved with the earlier adopter programme.  Details of TUoN's outputs from the adopter programme and links to activities can be found at http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/junkbot-project-case-study-and-session.html. 

More details can be found at: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/article/414/stem-workshop-on-public-engagement-with-added-dinosaurs

STEM networking event

Our next University STEM networking event will be a lively, interactive session given by Ed Drewitt, famous for his Bristol Dinosaur Project (www.thebristoldinosaurproject.org.uk) and Nicholas Garrick from Lighting up Learning Limited (www.lightinguplearning.com )

Both are trained practitioners and highly regarded in their field of expertise.

Friday 8 February 2013
Newton  Avenue Campus, University of Northampton, UK

• 1.15pm Tea and Coffee
• 1.30 start
• 5.00pm finish

The session builds on recognition that many scientists do not have the skills to interact effectively with school students (especially Key Stage 1 - 3 pupils). The aim of the session is: students, PhD students and STEM academics to be more involved with public engagement activities and to create and share a range of materials for workshops in primary schools.

This is a must for all STEM Ambassadors or those interested in improving their skills and techniques in public engagement and we encourage to you come to this free workshop.

More details can be found at: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/article/414/stem-workshop-on-public-engagement-with-added-dinosaurs

research and public engagement

An extract that might be of interest for those involved in research and or public engagement  from National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement newsletter

www.publicengagement.ac.uk

Creating Impact Case Studies for the REF: 4^th October, 2012, Bristol

Are you helping researchers to makes sense of the Impact dimension to the REF? If so the NCCPE is keen to help. This training the trainer event provides a unique opportunity to find out about resources we’ve developed to help researchers create impact case studies, and to develop skills in evaluation. Find out more here: www.publicengagement.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/creating-impact-case-studies-ref

Beginner’s Guide to Evaluation: Training the trainer: 30^th August 2012, Birmingham

Thanks to those of you who expressed interest in this course. We are delighted to announce the date and time for this event. Please note – delegates have told us they would like a longer course to run through some of the exercises together – so the course is now 4 hours and includes lunch! In addition trainers attending the course will be able to apply for support for the first course that they run! Book your free place, and find our more:www.publicengagement.ac.uk/train-trainer-beginners-guide-evaluation

Online public engagement training pilot

With the support of the National HE STEM Programme, we have recently launched an online public engagement training course. This pilot course is now live on our website and currently has 2 modules; Getting started with Public Engagement and Communication Skills. We would like to invite you to road test this course and let us know what you think using our online survey:  http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/stem  

Embedding impact analysis in research

For regular updates from this JISC funded project aiming to help institutions embed capability and processes for identifying and articulating benefits and impact in their research groups log onto the project space: http://nccpe1.ning.com/.  On the 31^st July, there will be an online forum discussion with representatives from the projects to explore key lessons and learning to date: http://nccpe1.ning.com/events/online-networking-learning-to-date for more details.

RCUK School-University Partnerships Initiative

This new initiative is providing £1.5million over three years to create and build partnerships between universities and secondary schools. This partnership working will support researchers’ direct engagement with students and bring contemporary and inspirational research contexts into formal and informal learning to enhance and enrich the curriculum. Funding of £150,000 is available to successful HEIs over three years. The call closes 25 September 2012 and is open to HEIs in receipt of a minimum threshold of RCUK funding.  Further information can be found on RCUK website. 

Consultation on Ethical principles and Guidelines for Community Based Participatory Research

The Centre for Social Justice and Community Action are consulting on guidelines developed with community partners. Please get involved. You can find out morewww.publicengagement.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/consultation-draft-ethical-principles-and-guidelines

If you require further information about our work, please follow the instructions for that item or email nccpe.enquiries@uwe.ac.uk. 

National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement

Watershed Media Centre, 1 Canon's Road, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5TX

Tel: 0117 915 0193

Email: nccpe.enquiries@uwe.ac.uk

Web: www.publicengagement.ac.uk

Twitter: @NCCPE608/5

Junkbots with session plans

The results of a funding from HE STEM South West has enabled the junkbot project to go into primary schools and the material to be revised based on good practice in STEM public engagement in primary schools. 


The funding looked at adopted the ideas and practice developed previously to produce STEM activities in this case targeted at Primary schools.


Details of the work developed and a case study can be found at: http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/project?id=16&pp=540







Details of the case study can be found at: http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Junkbot_june_northampton.pdf

Example session plans 


These were based on the seminars and tools from http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/project?id=16&pp=453 and the published guide Guide to Delivering Effective STEM Public Engagement

• Details of an in-school session plan can be found at: http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_KS3_4_longer.docx
• Details of an STEM club session plan can be found at: http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_primary_short8.docx

Junkbots on Prezi

If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Outreach- Science and Engineering week 2012

Several outreach activities were produced for National Science and Engineering Week 2012 by the School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton.

Engineering:

The Department of Engineering  provided a week of events to mark National Science & Engineering week 2012 including several outreach activities

• 13th March 2012 "Move forward with Engineering Day" - an event to showcase the opportunities in engineering both for HE and employment to schools.
• 14th March 2012 hosting the Rotary Technology Tournament to promote science and engineering to school children.

Outreach

View more PowerPoint from Scott Turner

South End Primary School
On 12th March 2012 a team from the School went to South End Infant school to deliver a range of activities to year 1 and 2 students including:

• an introduction to engineering;
• robot exercises;
• junkbots;
• leather science. 

Roade Primary School
On 16th March 2012 junkbots went to Roade Primary School. Where robots from junk were made by year 6 students.