Mercury #3

GLASGOW SCIENCE CENTRE NEWS

Reaching more people with science

sgow Proud to support Gla in its aim to become a city of science

Glasgow Science Centre is a charity whose mission is to inspire, challenge and engage everyone with the wonders of science.

Issue 3 www.glasgowsciencecentre.org

Mercury

Issue 3 www.glasgowsciencecentre.org

Free places for Glasgow schools

Thanks to a partnership with Glasgow City Council, free entry to Glasgow Science Centre has been made available to 35,000 primary age schoolchildren in 2011/12.

Glasgow Science Centre has maintained prices for schools at the same level since we opened. But even our minimum £4 per head admission price can be beyond the reach of primary schools in some of Glasgow’s most disadvantaged areas – particularly if transport costs must also be covered. Yet it’s these children, many of whom have few other opportunities to

engage with science, who stand to benefit most from a visit to GSC. The Scottish Government already provides transport grants to enable schools to reach us, and GSC offers teachers resource materials that link in with the curriculum. It’s all part of our mission to make science engagement and science education activity available to as many people in Scotland as possible. Thanks to Glasgow City Council piloting free places to Glasgow schools, we can now open our doors to even more kids.

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Immediate impact The initiative has already attracted significant interest, with almost 12,000 bookings made to date since September. It’s great news for schools and great news for GSC. Schools comprise a significant audience for us: on weekdays during term-time, it’s schoolchildren who fill up our Science Mall and take advantage of our curriculum-linked education programme.

“We’re keen to let schools know that we’re here and open for business,” says acting Chief Executive David McQueen. “Most people hear of us through word of mouth – teachers speaking to other teachers – and the more teachers and schools we can get in here, the bigger the message we send out.

“Everyone is really excited by the new opportunity, and we’re very keen to see the pilot continue to open doors to more children in future years. Our ideal is to see a child who goes to In the last school in Glasgow making a visit to us quarter of each year throughout primary school.

We want GSC to become an integral part of the learning experience and help children to build their interests as they go forward.”

Ripple effect Already the initiative has had a wider impact, with a number of schools from East Renfrewshire enquiring as to how they can also benefit from free places.

Lasting results Teachers consistently report a big surge in interest in science following a visit to GSC, and we hope that the experience stays with children as they move forward and begin to make decisions about their future careers.

2011

three times as many

school children from the Glasgow area have come on a visit as the same period the year before.

“The key is to encourage all local education authorities to get on board,” says David. “Economies of scale mean that the cost per head will come down the more people sign up to the initiative. Our aim as a science centre is to maximise accessibility options for everyone in our society.”

Says Science Learning Manager Sharon MacNab: “The good thing for teachers is, because it’s free, they can embed a visit to GSC into their curriculum much more easily. If the funding continues, the effect will snowball as teachers will be able to plan ahead to include a visit.

It all goes towards ensuring that our science centre is used to its full potential and in support of the wider Scottish Government agenda.

“We’re receiving very positive feedback from teachers and we also collect pupil questionnaires. A lot of the children comment on how much fun they’ve had, with some saying that their visit to GSC was one of the best days of their lives. Thanks to the free places, many of the children who visit have never previously had the opportunity to explore a science centre.”

Play for the day learn for a lifetime

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Giving our visitors a sporting chance Every year we add to the experiences on offer at Glasgow Science Centre to ensure that a day out here is always an exciting prospect – even for our Science Passport holders who visit us regularly.

In 2011, we installed the Be Creative, MindWorks and Alice in Wonderland exhibitions, and work is under way to unveil our new BodyWorks experience in 2013. This year, it’s the turn of our education programme to draw in the crowds.

“We have a really strong programming team, and people love the science shows and workshops that we run,” says Robin Hoyle, Director of Science. “We currently have around four times the number of Science Passport holders that we had in 2010. More people are buying into the science centre and it’s important that we give back by continually looking to refresh our offer.

With the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics kicking off this summer and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games around the corner, sport will be our hot topic. So many people are interested in sport, it’s a great lens though which to view science.

And with so much going on in Scotland in terms of sports related innovation, it’s an opportunity for us to partner with some exciting home-grown talent.

Stronger together Partnerships give GSC the opportunity to showcase some of the latest innovations in the world of science to the general public. We provide academia and industry with an avid audience keen to hear more about their work, and in turn the outside expertise helps us to make our funding go further and attract greater numbers of visitors through our doors.

What’s more, our education experts can help scientists and business people to make a bigger impact by providing training and experience in science communication skills. The benefit remains long after the individuals have presented at GSC, in the greater confidence and effect that they have when engaging with other audiences elsewhere.

The science bit Our examination of sport will encompass physiology and also the science of materials. The topic will also serve the Scottish Government’s push for a healthier Scotland, by helping people to understand that it’s fitness rather than weight that’s the real issue at stake.

“We want to raise awareness of the science that underpins human health,” says Robin. “For example, if you know that lactic acid build-up is a normal part of exercising, that knowledge can help you to persevere.

The more we can do to get those sorts of ideas across, the more our visitors will be amazed by the feats of professional athletes and understand why it’s good to stay active and follow a healthy diet.”

GlaxoSmithKline will use GSC as a hub for the Scottish leg of its Scientists in Sport event, which links in with universities that have sports science departments.

Meanwhile Wellcome Trust will bring its touring In the Zone ‘Lite’ experience to our space. Its hands-on exhibits and activities will let visitors find out all about the body - during sport, movement and activity, and when at rest.

In the pipeline A mass participation event planned by the BBC will let people discover whether or not they can perform like a top athlete when under pressure. We’re also showcasing the pioneering technology of Otto Bock, the leading manufacturer of innovative prosthetics, wheelchairs and other products to promote mobility.

Says Robin: “The programme will offer visitors the opportunity to engage with Scotland’s leading sports scientists to find out how fit they are and compare themselves to our top athletes. It will also let us explore the advances in materials sciences, design and manufacturing that are happening right here on our doorstep, which may help to inspire the next generation of innovators.”

Our Build It event in October broke all previous records for visitor numbers, making it our busiest week since opening in 2001. And it’s just one of a range of successful engagements we pulled off last year.

Our winning streak began with our ‘Dirt’ weekend, run in conjunction with Wellcome Trust from 23 to 26 September 2011. Asked to host the initiative to ensure that it had a profile beyond London, we then added a number of extras to help Wellcome Trust meet its objectives.

“We welcome opportunities for partnerships and work hard to plan

an initiative around our partners’ aims as well as our own,” says Communications Manager Ian Wilson.

“We consider all facets to give our partners an appropriate level of profile and help them to get across their messages. So we look at what will happen in terms of communication, customer experience, exhibits and dressing the set, and our website and social media.

“In the case of the Dirt weekend, we used some of our existing communications and marketing platforms, particularly our website, to make more of the event and to build

the association between GSC and Wellcome Trust.”

We’ve been similarly supportive of other public and schools engagements, helping our partners to make the most of the chance to reach up to 14,000 members of the public in a week (Build It, October) or some 750 school pupils a day (Build It, January).

In October, we partnered with a number of experts to bring the public an event that tackled the key aspects of building on a large scale. New content provided by partners complemented our own full programme of activities.

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Engaging with our audience

Stop press Dr Stephen Breslin has been appointed our new Chief Executive.

More than 100 candidates from around the world expressed an interest in the role. Stephen is currently CEO of Futurelab and will take up his post at Glasgow Science Centre on 1 May. We’re delighted to have him on board and will report more on Stephen’s background and his plans for GSC in the next issue of Mercury.

Representatives of the Institution of Civil Engineers ran an activity to build a cable-stayed bridge, and a display created by the construction company behind the new South Glasgow hospital attracted a great deal of interest from locals.

schools we report back to them on how they were received.”

The Scottish Wildlife Trust tackled environmental issues related to building, while Scottish & Southern Energy covered the construction of wind farms. BAE Systems sent some of its apprentices along to talk about building aircraft carriers.

Most popular of all perhaps was the BBC Planet Dinosaur kit, situated next to the Glasgow University pop-up museum, which covered archaeological excavations.

For the second time, GSC was asked to host a round of the FameLab UK competition, which scours the country for the best science communication talent. We recruited a number of scientists, mainly from the academic research community, who were each given a couple of minutes to wow the judges and public audience.

Thanks to the great success of October’s public programme, we managed to secure a lot of interest from partners to participate in our January schools programme.

“We provided training in science communication skills for partners who didn’t have a great deal of experience in presenting,” says Science Education Co-ordinator Tara Gibson. “Many of them came back to GSC to deliver during the January schools week, using the skills that they’d learned at our course. Once we have feedback from

We hope to run another engineering event for the public in October 2012.

FameLab, Saturday 19 November 2011

“One of our tasks is to ensure that scientists get out and tell the public about their research, so FameLab fits with our mission 100 per cent,” says Susan Meikleham, Science Education Co-ordinator. “We’re bringing research scientists out into the spotlight and allowing the public access to hear what they have to say in an easily digestible way. That’s what we’re here for.”

Four judges from the world of science and communication, including our very own Director of Science Robin Hoyle, rated the participants on scientific content, accuracy and also charisma. To give

them the best chance possible, GSC provided a masterclass in science communication the day before the heat. The winner of the GSC round, a physicist, will now go forward to the final, held at Cheltenham Science Festival in March.

Says Susan: “It’s encouraging that those people who get involved tend to go on to develop more of a thirst for science engagement.”

Other partnership events coming up: A Question of Taste, supported by Wellcome Trust and in partnership with other science centres around the UK. Its aim is to give pupils studying for Advanced Higher experience of molecular biology techniques they wouldn’t normally have the chance to use in class. GSC’s buddy in the initiative is NowGen, a biomedical engagement organisation that will help us deliver the workshops.

Smarter UK, supported by Wellcome Trust and in partnership with Bristolbased company Graphic Science.

This free outreach activity will take the debate about cognitive enhancing drugs out into S3 and S4 classrooms in schools.

Meet the Expert activities on Sustainable Science, with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, RSPB and others.

0141 420 5000 www.glasgowsciencecentre.org Glasgow Science Centre is a charity whose mission is to inspire, challenge and engage everyone with the wonders of science.