In part two of our Science Capital in Practice: Foundations for the future blog series, we explore what the programme partners learned about sharing the science capital approach with their colleagues across their organisation.
In part one of our Science Capital in Practice: Foundations for the Future blog series, we explore how taking a science capital approach has helped partner organisations to build and broaden their audiences.
We talk about engagement a lot in our work, it is at the heart of everything that we do and we use it to describe and measure the value and benefit of our experiences. However, it can be a hard word to define. Beth Hawkins explores ‘what exactly do we mean when we talk about engagement?’.
Maxwell Hamilton describes how we challenged ourselves to reflect on the everyday examples, and the language we used in content we created for BBC Bitesize Daily as part of Science Week. He shares how we worked to make the content relevant to the audience of at home students.
Jess Sashaw shares the development of our maths themed image banks and how we’ve brought to life some of the stories behind objects in our collection. She discusses how they help promote discussion, develop confidence and ownership and how they have help relate maths to everyday life.
Hands-on making activities are an essential part of our learning resources offer. Our activities use easy to find materials and give people the opportunity to get creative with science and maths at home and in the classroom. Jess Sashaw discusses our newly developed set of maths resources.
Our engagement reflection points help us make our experiences relevant to as wide an audience as possible. Jess Sashaw has been developing our maths engagement offer, and shares how the reflection points can help people feel more connected to maths.
In the latest ‘Out and About’, Maxwell Hamilton took his niece to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum. He shares how they were made to feel welcome, and how the experience encouraged science talk and helped them link STEM to their everyday lives.
In November, we hosted a Skills Fair for students aged 11-13 years at the Science Museum, London. Jess Sashaw, part of the team who developed and delivered the event, shares why we chose to base our fair on skills, rather than hosting a traditional careers fair.
Whilst working to embed a science capital approach across the Science Museum Group, we have also been sharing our experiences with universities, museums and science centres across the world. Sarah Callan, Science Museum Studies student, SUNY Oneonta University, NY, shares her cohort’s experience of applying the research to an informal education setting.
Maxwell Hamilton catches up with Frederike Gerstner, half of the ‘Ben and Fred’ duo who won the 2019 Josh Award for STEM communication. Find out how they created ‘The Juggling of Science’, and how they adapted it for the Science and Industry Museum’s half term crowd.
Bridget Holligan, Director of Education and Engagement, Science Oxford shares how Science Oxford have kicked off their ‘Science Capital in Practice’ grant with a training day exploring their existing understanding of science capital and how they will be integrating it into their programme.