Bringing our photonics research to a diverse audience

| Bringing photonics research to more diverse audiences

Visitor comment at the Photon Shop at Light Up Poole! Digital Arts Festival 2020

Light tunnel inside a wave machine made with LED finger lights Courtesy of Dr Paul Gow

The Hub’s Photonics Outreach Programme had an extraordinary year in 2020, as the global pandemic hit. Our schools and public engagement figures dropped from an annual average of 5,000 to 2,300 as a result of COVID-19.

Despite the challenges forced upon us by the pandemic, we were able to widen participation and embark on a journey of ‘outreach virtualisation’.

We were delighted to broaden our research engagement activities by training staff and students to work more effectively with autistic people and to reach audiences with very little access to the internet during lockdown.

We were fortunate to be able to deliver our Photon Shop activity to people in an area of deprivation before the lockdown hit, and we also began a virtualisation programme to ensure that we can continue to work successfully online with the public in the future.

We began the process of virtualising our Light Express Roadshow as a video resource to support teaching of optics and photonics in schools and teachers’ workshops. We also designed and piloted two virtual teachers’ photonics workshops using new teaching materials.

Hundreds of Southampton pupils, who had little or no access to the internet during lockdown, also received packs containing a Hub outreach activity.

| Bringing photonics research to more diverse audiences

Increasing accessibility

The three-day Photon Shop activity run by the Hub Outreach Team in a disused shop in Poole during the Light Up Poole! Digital Arts Festival in 2019, saw more than 1,000 members of the public engaging with researchers, but evaluation of the activity showed improvements could be made to increase accessibility and involvement for an autistic audience and members of the public with special needs.

To achieve this, we organised a training session with a Hampshire Autistic Society called Understanding Autistic People. This training made our Photon Shop activity at the Light Up Poole! Digital Arts Festival 2020 more accessible - with half an hour at the beginning of each session dedicated to autistic visitors; a chill out zone; floor signage; written learning objectives and activity timers at stands. To create a quieter environment bathroom hand driers were turned off and paper towels were provided instead. Demonstrators were also given specific training on how to adapt their presentation styles accordingly.

Many of the things we learnt through the training have improved our communication skills and will also benefit non-autistic participants. We are also publishing a guide – coauthored with Autism Hampshire trainer David Serpell – called Towards Improving Outreach and Public Engagement Experiences for Autistic People.

Shining a spotlight on Southampton research

In 2020, more than 2,000 members of the public discovered our pioneering research into the science of light at the Light Up Poole! Digital Arts Festival, which aimed to promote and encourage learning in science, engineering and technology; driving economic growth and offseason tourism and using light art to reflect Poole’s heritage and natural and built environments.

Our Photon Shop featured a collection of stands exhibiting research projects and public engagement activities, and was a popular activity at the three-day event that attracted about 53,000 people visitors. Our activities included: fibre optics demonstrations, including holey fibre, a laser/music transmission kit; an LED and laser harp and an infinity mirror. The demos illustrated basic light theory such as reflection, refraction and total internal reflection and showed the visitors how light can be used to transfer data via the internet and how fibre is used in manufacturing. The activities were designed to inform the public of the importance of photonics and photonics research in their lives.

Surveys of visitors showed that all enjoyed the Photon Shop, with 95 per cent of those asked saying that they would recommend the Photon Shop to other people. A vast majority said they were more likely to study physics or recommend studying physics to a friend or family member after visiting the Photon Shop and felt inspired to learn more about physics..

The impact of the outreach was further strengthened with 40,000 Light Up Poole! brochures (featuring the Photon Shop) being distributed to the general public. Dr Bill Brocklesby sparking a passion for photonics Courtesy of Dr Paul Gow