Core technology platforms

| Bringing photonics research to more diverse audiences

The continuing COVID-19 global pandemic severely impacted the Hub’s Schools’ and Public Engagement Programme again during 2021, however, opportunities for working with new and often minority audiences in new ways emerged.

As more people were vaccinated towards the end of the year we were able to restart face-to-face events.

Our work during the year focused on:

■ demonstrator training and the delivery of on-line workshops with the science-interested public at science festivals; ■ support for a summer school for

A-Level physics students of Afro-

Caribbean Heritage; ■ face-to-face workshops with a small group of Afghan refugees; ■ work on the virtualisation of Hub activities; ■ disseminating good practice at national public engagement and outreach conferences.

Reaching the disadvantaged

We impacted almost 550 members of the public, many who were disadvantaged by a lack of access to technology. We contributed optics activities to outreach packs distributed to local community groups.

Student skills development

We provided two workshop sessions for seven postgraduate and two undergraduate physics students, followed by on-the-job training and on-going self-reflection activities. The sessions included an introduction to the Hub and the purpose of photonics outreach and public engagement. Image credit: Ollie Lane

| Bringing photonics research to more diverse audiences

Postgraduate student Callum Stirling said: “Outreach training improved my ability to communicate my research, with direct benefit to the quality of my research outputs such as journal papers and my doctoral thesis.

“Engaging in outreach activities was crucial to my success delivering conference presentations and working with external collaborators. Planning and delivering outreach events developed skills in leadership, project management, stakeholder engagement and financial control. These skills have directly led to my success in finding employment in photonics following my doctoral studies.”

Activity delivery

We delivered on-line optics workshops at the Southampton Science and Engineering Festival Family Day (SOTSEF) and the celebration of the International Day of Light, which gave families the opportunity to find out more about photonics and make spectroscopes from household objects. The workshops were designed to appeal to a wide age-range as well as family groups.

We also delivered four face-to-face hands-on workshops during the Southampton Festival of Arts and Humanities.

Engaging with community groups

We partnered with Southampton City Council to provide an optics workshop to pupils who were Afghan refugees. The children had recently arrived in the UK and did not speak English. The workshop, which was translated into Farsi, focused on fibre optics and involved participants building their own kaleidoscopes.

Continuing virtualisation of Hub outreach and public engagement

Following the success of our first Light Express video ‘Exploring Waves of Light’, we started producing a second film featuring Southampton graduate Dr Senta Jentzen that focuses on measuring the speed of waves. The film is due to be published very soon.

The Hub outreach team also supported a Southampton physics summer school for students of AfroCaribbean Heritage by contributing funding and providing a virtual tour of Hub facilities. Students from Afro-Caribbean heritage face significant barriers to studying physics, and work is being done to increase diversity in photonics. The summer school included physics and astronomy talks and practical activities and an introduction to the Hub by a postdoctoral researcher.

Widening participation across he digital divide

During lockdown hundreds of pupils in Southampton had little or no access to the Internet, effectively excluding them from educational activity. We contributed activities for 350 activity packs that were distributed via Southampton’s Widening Participation team to local underserved schools.

Dissemination of Best Practice

Southampton postgraduate student Alice Iles gave a talk about our on-line activities at V-Interact - an engagement workshop for the physical sciences – to an audience of researchers and public engagement professionals.

Dr Pearl John, Public Engagement Leader, gave two presentations at workshops during the annual National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) ‘Engage’ conference. The presentations focused on improving outreach and public engagement experiences for autistic people at photonics outreach events. The workshops were attended by 40 outreach and public engagement specialists and interested others. Image courtesy of: Ollie Lane

Image courtesy of: Paul Gow

Image courtesy of: Dr Pearl John Image courtesy of: Dr Pearl John