BIG e-news: Issue 8 - January 2009

A very Happy New Year to one and all! The festive season is well and truly behind us and we reach that time of year when we reflect on the changes we want to make over the coming year.

As BIG looks forward to an exciting year ahead, we remind you that we exist to serve the needs of each and every member and we need to know what our members want. We welcome comments and articles, long or short, to include in future bulletins, so get scrawling now!

Sarah Vining
BIG Administrator

New Year's Resolutions

Professor Richard Wiseman has devised a formula for the perfect New Year's resolution - read the results of the study.

... what will the BIG Exec be giving up in 2009?

"I won't make promises I can't keep" James Piercy, science made simple

"I am going to clean my oven, learn how to drive a manual car, and bake a lasagne. Probably in the opposite order" Savita Custead, BIG Event Coordinator

"I'm going to cook more. I've not been pulling my weight in the kitchen since I moved from school to the Centre for Life" Noel Jackson, Centre for Life

"I'm going to PUSH (baby due this month) and then I'm going to get an allotment" Rachel Mason, Techniquest@NEWI

"I will try and enjoy the English weather" Natasha Verniquet, Oxford Trust

"I'm going to stop going to the gym and start smoking again" Sarah Vining, BIG Administrator

BIG Event 2009 - Call for Session Proposals!

Savita Custead

The 2009 BIG Event will be held on July 22-24, 2009 at the Royal Institution in London.

We have already had a huge amount of interest in the conference and we're sure it's going to be our biggest and best yet. Your BIG Executive has decided to open the Call for Session Proposals even earlier this year, so we can get as many ideas as possible from our members. We'd really love to hear your ideas - whether you've been working in interactivity for 20 years or 20 months. If you have a great idea, but are not quite sure how to go about it or need collaborators - post a message on BIG chat. Guidelines for session proposals and more information about the conference can be found on the BIG website. Proposals must be received between January 1st and February 20th, 2009. As always, address any questions to event@big.uk.com. See you in July!

BIG Bursary Winner Announced!

David Price, science made simple

Congratulations to David Price from science made simple for winning this year's Professional Development Bursary Award.

"I was lucky enough to be awarded this year's bursary. Thanks to BIG I will be going to the world busking championships held in Dublin next June, to observe and learn from professional street performers.

I think Science busking is too often at the periphery of events, almost an add on. In-fact it is a devastatingly effective and adaptable means of communicating with people. It is at its best a none judgmental and wholly open invitation to play and investigate the world around us.

Now the great thing about being a presenter is that you get to present. However if you are presenting, it then becomes very difficult to observe and learn from colleagues. So the very nature of my busking at events and festivals often prevents me from observing other busking techniques. The BIG bursary will give me time to learn.

My bursary will allow me to attend the world street performance championships in Dublin, to observe and interact with world-class street performers, to develop my busking skills by exposure to busking practitioners beyond our sci com field. Then (and this is the bit I am already getting nervous about) use this experience to refine and express my development as a busker in a 20-minute busking routine, delivered at the BIG Event.

My aim is not so much to create new demos, most of the demo material you will have seen before (some of it might be yours!). Rather I hope to pass on techniques to gather, engage and hold an audience that can be used with a wide range of material.

I think busking is a really effective medium for science communication, join me at the BIG Event 09 to share in what I learned."

Making Sense of Exhibits

Jennifer DeWitt, King's College, London

What sense do visitors make of their interactions with exhibits in our science centres and how they go about interpreting their experiences? We used video clips of schoolchildren's interactions with exhibits to address this question.

At Techniquest 129 Key Stage 2 students (Years 5 and 6) from five schools were video recorded as they interacted with a Bernoulli Blower, Heave Ho!, Bubble Race and the Kugel and other exhibits. We collected data at three exhibits for each class during the course of their normal school visits to Techniquest, and later revisited the schools to show students video clips and/or still photographs from their visits and interview them about their experiences.

Two of the schools were visited approximately two weeks after their visits and three were visited two to three months after their trips, following the summer holidays. The timing of the interview did not seem to influence what they said. We found that digital media enable students to re-visit their experiences and engage them with the content underlying exhibits. When asked what was happening and what exhibits were about, most students' responses were straightforward descriptions of what could be observed or what they had done at the exhibits.

It floats and goes up and down with your hands. It's like you're pushing it, but without touching it. (Bernoulli Blower)

However, nearly all students, at some point, also made statements indicating that they were really engaged with the underlying scientific principles, at least while watching the clip.

It's, like, overpowering, well, it's not overpowering gravity, but it equals gravity. So, it's the up-thrust, it was gravity, so it lets it float.... You can equal, like, the force of gravity with another force -- usually you can't just make a ball float in the air. (Bernoulli Blower)

The experience of viewing video clips and photographs from their visits also encouraged students to recall and discuss the social and affective dimensions of their experience. In particular, children explained why they considered certain exhibits to be more fun or interesting than others. Many mentioned how they could 'do things' with the exhibits, instead of 'just looking', and they particularly enjoyed exhibits which offered multiple possibilities for exploration. Some also felt that particular exhibits were interesting because they learned from them. However, there was no apparent pattern as to which exhibits students chose as fun or interesting.

Overall, it seems that these 'revisitations' of exhibit interactions can serve as one way of developing further students' scientific concepts and exploiting the value for learning (cognitive and affective) from science centre visits. The findings also would encourage science centres to consider providing of interactions with exhibits (with appropriate consent) as part of their follow-up materials or making such clips available online. Clips used in this study were not of particularly high quality, but still elicited rich discussion, and the teachers strongly felt that such clips would be a resource they could and would eagerly use in their classrooms.

This work was funded by the Center for Informal Learning and Schools, National Science Foundation ESI Grant No. 0119787

Magic v Science

Matt Pritchard, Thinktank

Recently I've been giving some thought to the overlap between my two career paths. My time is split between working in science communication and performing as a magician.

Mid-week I'm an Education Officer at Thinktank science museum, then during the weekends I'm off gigging with the magic and stand up comedy. Both jobs deal in "wows" and wonder - a scarce commodity in today's world. And both play with natural phenomenon to demonstrate surprising and entertaining results. The main difference is that magicians deliberately conceal their methods, whereas science communicators openly explain the observed effects.

Yesterday the school children we visited with our outreach service whooped, gasped and applauded the 'science'. Not that there was anything unusual about the delivery or demos being shown that day. But here, under the roof of our inflatable planetarium dome, were a group of children having a wonderful experience that hopefully they will remember for a long time. It wasn't magic but it was magical. And then we explained the science, used the keywords and ticked the national curriculum boxes for the teacher who booked the visit.

There's a rule in magic: "never explain what you're going to do before you do it." The reasoning being that (a) it's easier to figure out if the audience knows what is going to happen and (b) the audience will be thinking about explanations rather than just enjoying the experience. The magic is relegated to a puzzle. In essence by pre-explaining you are destroying the potential for wonder. As a magician I follow this rule. However, as a science presenter I sometimes catch myself explaining away any potential mystery or pre-empting the surprise outcome experienced with some demos. In doing so I've probably robbed my audience of an experience. It's also possible for me to crush the wonder by forgetting that 'obvious' is not always obvious to my audience.

The question I'm asking myself is am I an entertainer or an educator? Are the two mutually exclusive, on opposite ends of a scale or is there such a thing as 'edutainment'? What I'd like to think is that I'm a tour guide pointing out a few highlights in a place filled with wonder. In an hour you can't teach a group much but you can inspire and open eyes.

matt@labmonkeys.co.uk

Protons for Breakfast

Dr. Michael de Podesta, Science Ambassador, National Physical Laboratory

One choice facing all BIG members is the format for their interaction. Protons for Breakfast has adopted a relatively unusual approach: an evening course in two-hour sessions spread over 6 weeks. Over its nine presentations the course has grown from 20 attendees to more than 80 per session with almost no dropout over the weeks.

Our aim is to help people have opinions about some of the serious issues that face us all. In a democracy, people's views are valuable whether or not they are scientifically literate. But frequently people do not value their own opinions because of their sense of incomprehension. We aim to educate people a little, but also to help them gain the confidence and motivation to put together the pieces of understanding they have and to place them in a wider context.

Content

We use no mathematics, but we do use numbers and spend a considerable amount of time at the start helping people to cope with the bogglingly large and small numbers that describe the universe and the tiny things which fill it. Our aim in the first three weeks is to introduce basic ideas which we will use when we discuss the 'issues' in the final three weeks. In the first three weeks, each evening consists of a lecture -demonstration with a long break for hands-on activities linking with the talk. We sum up the key concepts in the following diagram:

In the second three weeks, the evenings consist of a lecture demonstration followed by small group discussions each seeded with an expert, a chair (to stop the expert talking!) and a scribe. We look at Global Warming Mobile Phone Safety, and Nuclear Power.

Feedback

On registering people are asked why they wish to attend and if they have any questions. When they arrive, they find their motivations and questions listed (anonymously) together with personal and friendly replies. Similarly feedback from each week is answered in time for the following week. This helps everyone to ask questions they feel embarrassed about asking in the sessions, and builds confidence as people see their questions are similar to other people's.

If BIG members would like to attend a session we would be happy to offer a £5 discount!

www.protonsforbreakfast.com

A Day in the Life of ... Natasha Verniquet, Science Projects Officer

A typical day at work consists of:

Hmm that's tricky! I wear a number of different 'hats'. In the morning I could be Ziggy, the world's worst magician who needs the kids to help her learn all about the science of magic, then at lunch I could be organising a roster for our casual staff, and then finish off the day by battling with the computer to create in-house marketing for our science centre.

Photo right: Natasha as Wizzy the Witch and her admiring fans

What got you into this career?

I did a double degree in science and journalism, but the university I was at didn't relate the two together. So I applied for the graduate diploma at the Australian National University, which set me off doing science shows in regional and rural Australia. Have never looked back.

What is the best thing about your job?

Getting to be creative; be it through making shows, training casual staff, or creating temporary exhibitions. I also get a real kick out of letters written to me by kids who have seen my shows.

... and the worst?

Not having enough money to allow our centre to be free entry, and the restraints finance puts on what we can produce.

What is your favourite meal?

Roast....anything

What is your favourite smell?

Lemon scented eucalyptus trees just after it has rained.

What talents do you possess?

An ability to produce an atrocious French accent, and great hands for playing Touch (a form of rugby)

What talents would you like to possess?

Read people's minds, then I could figure out if people are laughing with me or at me

Which actor do you think should play you in the film of your life?

Elmo (was recently told I laugh like tickle-me-Elmo)

Which living person do you most admire and why?

As corny as it sounds it probably is my mum. She survived being a full time secondary teacher with four kids under six ...eek!

Most beautiful place on earth?

You mean aside from Hands On, our little science centre in Oxford? Well I would have to say Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

What is your Motto for life?

"Don't worry be happy J"

What's new?

Congratulations to Wendy Sadler, Marieke Nevin and Becky Holmes who are all expecting babies in late Spring... was there something in the water at the BIG Event?!

Time for a change?

Did you know that the BIG jobs page receives an average of 10 individual hits each day? You can get your opportunities seen by professionals in the science communications industry by adding your own job vacancies - free of charge.

Sneak preview - BIG Skills Days 2009

Preliminary details of the programme of BIG Skills Days for 2009 are given below. Further details on costs, venues and registrations will be available on the BIG website. To be kept informed about specific events, please contact the Event Organizer and asked to be added to the event mailing list.

Feb/March 2009 - Theatre skills training

This day-long practical workshop in the Bristol area will be led by an experienced theatre practitioner. Aimed at those involved in presenting science shows, the day will develop vocal and physical skills to enhance your performance. Places are limited on this course please contact Ben Brown with expressions of interest explorerdome@blueyonder.co.uk

April 2009 - Activities for Teenagers

This full day event in Scotland is aimed at those planning to work with 14-16 year olds. The day will consist of the opportunity to see new activities in action followed by discussion and top tips for working with this challenging age group. Please send expressions of interest to Tania Johnston tjo@roe.ac.uk

May 6 2009 - Science Festivals Workshop

Following the success of last year's meeting for people involved in UK Science Festivals, we will be repeating the exercise on 6 May. This will be an opportunity for people involved in the running of Festivals nationally to build on the strong links which already exist, as well as to share experiences, learn from each other and meet the new people who have come onto the scene in recent years. The agenda still has to be finalised, so if anyone would like to propose issues for discussion then contact Dominic Mcdonald dominic.mcdonald@oxtrust.org.uk

Venue: Wellcome Trust building, Euston Rd, London
Cost: £30 for BIG members £60 for non-members (includes membership)

September 2009 - The Little Event

Aimed at those new to the field of science communication, this mini conference aims to pass on the background to how we work and give a taste of what BIG can offer to newbies in the field. Held in the north east of England, sessions will cover:

• careers in science communication
• basic learning theory and GLO's
• key skills in presentation and facilitation.

Perhaps most importantly the day will offer young science communicators from across the UK, the opportunity to meet others doing similar work. We hope that long-standing BIG members will be keen to support this new initiative, if you have staff you think would benefit, or would be interested in running a session please contact Toni Hamill Toni.Hamill@life.org.uk

With a Happy New Year from the BIG Executive 2008-09!

Noel Jackson, Chair
James Piercy, Vice-Chair
Rachel Mason, Treasurer
Natasha Verniquet, Secretary
Savita Custead, Event Organiser
and Sarah Vining, Administrator

Contact BIG