Public Engagement Grant Scheme-funded projects 2022

Kielder Observatory

Project: SPIDER astronomy

SPIDER Astronomy directly addresses the barriers to engagement in radio astronomy by communities, anchored by the new SPIDER radio telescope at Kielder Observatory.

Radio astronomy is more complex to understand and interpret than optical observation yet has enormous potential for citizen science.

This project will work with the Young Asian Voices community group in Sunderland, technical specialists at Durham University and a creative practitioner to test a digitally enabled curriculum that raises awareness of radio astronomy, embeds knowledge of its properties, and scaffolds learning so that complete novices can quickly learn to operate the radio telescope at Kielder.

This will include a workshop in Sunderland, online learning, and a visit to Kielder itself to see and operate the telescope, along with the rest of the observatory.

Real Photography Company

Project: Eclipse Experimentation

The project will enable families and community groups to experiment with a solar eclipse occurring in the UK and Europe on 25 October 2022, both in person and remotely.

Participants will project the crescent sun onto paper and take part in other activities as the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, using various items with holes, for example a colander, a cream cracker, straw hats etc.

The eclipse occurs during school half-term. There will be a main activity hub for people to visit outside St Pauls Learning Centre, Bristol with an information pack publicised locally and nationally during the previous month. 

The project will be supported by a workshop the week before the event, and online learning resources explaining the 2,400-year history of light experimentation and discovery using a small hole, from the scientific breakthroughs of Aristotle, Alhazan and Newton to the discovery of the application of perspective in art.

RaspiKidd

Project: Exploring Sustainability Through Physical Computing in the Community

We are going to run a series of programming workshops with a wide age group through three different organisations.

We will target adults through the Maxwell community centre, upper high-school students through Morgan Academy and primary/lower secondary students through the junior makerspace at the Central Library in Dundee. The project will primarily be focused around using BBC micro:bit by lighting up LEDs and setting up temperature and light-level monitoring.

As the Maxwell centre has a garden attached, we will give the group the skills to integrate the programming skills we are teaching into monitoring the plants within the garden by adding moisture sensors, hydroponics etc.

With the students within Morgan Academy and library junior makerspace, we will show the students how to start off with the basics of BBC micro:bit advancing up to creating step counters, blinking LEDs and building robots.

Jamie Dumayne

Project: Newtown Science Festival

Newtown Science Festival is a one-day event on 17 September 2022 in Newtown, Powys.

This event aims to encourage local children (aged 7-16) to have an interest in STEM, in a part of the UK that is rarely reached by science communication. Families will be able to take part in STEM activities and talk to people who work in STEM. The festival will be free to enter. It will bring together a collection of universities and businesses from across Wales.

There is a strong focus on physics, however there will be other areas of STEM being shown off too. Some of the areas of science being shown off include: the optics of a Mars rover, a planetarium, particle physics, artificial intelligence, the James Webb Space Telescope, robots, and 3D printing.

Success4All

Project: Physics Curiosity Hub

The project will allow us to deliver our new Physics Curiosity Hub model over four six-week blocks in a local community.

The Curiosity Hub will be aimed primarily at children aged between 4 and 7 years old, who aren’t actively engaged in physics or science more generally. Each block will be focused on a different area of STEM, including the environment and sustainability, and the human body and health.

Each session will include a science investigation or experiment, a crafts activity, and an activity to do at home, all around the same area of the topic. Children will gain positive experiences with people associated with science, and will develop key skills including teamwork, problem solving, and creativity.