CommunicatorSpecial Supplement:

Science CommunicationAutumn 2016

Outreach and the Science Museum

At-Bristol dissections case study

Statistics and surnames

Q&A with a science illustrator

Science is ageless

Communicator Autumn 2016 – Supplement

12 Learning

Science is agelessHow do you solve problems in a family group? Together? Does the junior school child take charge or does the adult? Tom Briggs, answers these questions and more.

When I left teaching to become a travelling museum STEM educator - Outreach Officer with the Bletchley Park Trust (or just “The Enigma Man”, a moniker I’m not at all inclined to discourage) - some things were second nature. Devising and delivering maths-focussed, engaging educational sessions to secondary school students,

for example. That had been my bread and butter for seven years. Other things, though, were new and scary, however. Such as devising and delivering maths-focussed, engaging educational sessions to primary school students, mixed family groups, and - scariest of all - adults.

Roll up, roll upLuckily for me the subjects my sessions are all rooted in - cryptography and codebreaking - are subjects which most people, regardless of age, have had similar experiences with: none whatsoever. Or so they think. Delving a little deeper it turns out that rather a lot of them have at least attempted a crossword or a sudoku at some point, which gives an easy route into the subject as puzzles appeal across the generations. I regularly team up with my grandmother to attack the crossword in her Sunday paper, and from conversations with the people I work with on my travels it appears that I’m far from being alone in engaging in such intergenerational free-time problem solving. And isn’t all of science rooted in solving problems?

So there’s an easy entry point for all age-groups. Yes, I’ve only given an example from my field, but much of the appeal of any area of science is its links with daily life for many people: chemistry can excite us with the same whizzes and bangs that drive us to movie theatres and fireworks displays; physics can tell us how boomerangs work, pool balls interact and skaters spin; and anything to do with space is just really, really cool, as evidenced by Professor Brian Cox’s ever-presence on our televisions, and The Sky at Night has been running since the beginning of time itself. Take a trip to your local bookshop and marvel at the “popular science” rack: a

whole section of bookshop just for us! But how on Earth do you design an activity to get your point across for, say, adults when you’re used to working with nine-year-olds?

I remember a phone call once in which I was asked “what would you do differently for adults?” I responded with “well, I’d probably do the same thing as I’d do for children, but a bit easier.” I frantically tried to stuff the words back into my mouth - what I said didn’t actually convey what I meant once it had left the confines of my head. I found myself booked to deliver a talk to a group of 250 farming professionals attending a weekend conference. It was nothing to do with their course, and was intended as something interesting and hopefully entertaining to wind down from the day’s formal talks and lectures. This was my first exclusively adult-attended gig and I got pretty stressed out trying to decide what to do for them having had precisely no prior experience delivering to grown-ups. In the end, rather than continuing and failing to reinvent the wheel I just took one of the sessions I’d developed for Key Stage 3 groups (ages 11-14), adjusting the language slightly and tweaking my presentation style (but less than you might think). It had a structure based on the historical development of my subject, punctuated with a few activities and demonstrations. I was slightly worried about trying to make them do stuff - adults just want to be talked at, don’t they? Not true, it turns out: It’s a bit tougher to get them involved initially, but once they’ve warmed up to the idea of this event being more than just a stuffy guy waffling at the front then, in every experience I’ve had to date, it flies.

Tom Briggs

© Shaun Armstrong/Mubsta.com Enigma keyboard © T. Briggs

Science miscommunication: Five ideas to ditch right now1. Adults just want to be talked at and must on no

account get involved

2. There’s some sort of correlation between age and cleverness

3. You can’t tell children the clever bits

4. You can’t tell adults the fun bits

5. “Fun” and “educational” are necessarily different things

Communicator Autumn 2016 – Supplement

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Tom Briggs is Education Manager with the Bletchley Park Trust, a role he acquired after nearly seven years as a qualified mathematics teacher. He has spent much of his time with the Bletchley Park Trust travelling the country with a real, working Enigma machine, developing and delivering codebreaking workshops, talks and sessions to a variety of audiences. E: tbriggs@bletchleypark.org.uk W: www.bletchleypark.org.uk/edu

Age is just a numberPeople love doing science. That is, people love finding out that they can do science. And that is people rather than children. The whole “same thing for adults as for children, but easier,” thing isn’t strictly speaking true, but it can be a helpful mnemonic. The reality, as always, is much deeper: As children we spend all day every day at school jumping from lesson to lesson in which we start off knowing practically nothing. We’re used to not knowing things so it’s less scary to be confronted with a broad spectrum of new stuff and being asked to get involved. Kids can often plunge right in without fear of losing face in front of their peers if they can’t immediately leap to the “right” answer. As adults, though, we tend to spend our working lives delving ever deeper into an increasingly narrow field so when confronted with something truly new and different it can make us uncomfortable - we’re adults now, and we’re supposed to know everything, right? Part of the beauty of science outreach education is its role in reminding people that there’s always new stuff to learn and that continuing to find things you don’t yet know about is a wonderful thing.

Families are the best. I’ve been lucky enough to take part in a few “Astonishing Family Science Weekends” at a well-known series of holiday resorts that have been a staple of British family holidays for generations (Am I allowed to say “Butlin’s”?). The fact that such an institution is even considering such a theme to drum up extra custom for some of their off-peak weekends says a lot about the changing face of science education. Families can take part in a variety of activities provided by the likes of the Science Museum, National Space Centre, Aardman Animations, and even some students from the University of Plymouth with a paddling pool full of custard.

I’m there representing Bletchley Park, and around 40 people per session turn up in family groups to solve a host of challenges which eventually provides the winning group with the code to a briefcase, within which is a prize. The nature of the activity is such that I get to observe what families are doing and how they react to the challenges. Invariably,

it’s the primary-school-age members of each group who get stuck-in first, with parents taking the stance that “family workshop” means “it’s for the children”. Grandparents, however, are straight in with the kids, and eventually those generations in the middle can’t deny their inquisitiveness any longer and start to join in too. I hear similar things from those providing other activities at the event: this is one of the best demonstrations I’ve ever experienced that science truly is ageless, with multiple generations of the same family digging into science- themed activities as a unit. Everybody’s learning; everybody’s doing; everybody’s enjoying science.

The bottom lineThe structure of the team formed by each family is interesting, too. I’ve lost count of the times a parent in the winning family has approached me after the session and said something like “we [mum and dad] didn’t have a clue what to do, but [nine-year-old] Jenny figured it out and taught us!” Adults don’t know everything, and there’s still new stuff to find out at all stages of life: learning doesn’t need to stop, ever. This is a healthy and important lesson for both adults and children to be reminded of, and as science educators we are uniquely placed to drive this message home, in the most fun and engaging ways imaginable.

I’ve made a point of finishing each of these sessions with “I hope you’ve enjoyed this activity,” which is always met with mumbles - occasionally cheers - of assent; and then “I’d like to also point out that you’re on holiday and you’ve spent the last forty-five minutes doing maths.” Cue a bit of laughter and hopefully the tiniest seed of an idea that maybe maths, science, and learning in general aren’t just things we leave behind when exiting the school gates, but that we can continue to explore for the rest of our lives.The bottom line, for me as a science communicator, is that we have one job to do. That job is not to convey facts, though they can be interesting. It’s not to teach particular topics or subjects, techniques or processes, though they can add to the fun. It’s simply to inspire. Our job is to inspire our audiences to delve a little deeper, regardless of age, because science truly is ageless. C

Tom’s Top Tip #1: Activities are not just for kids!Give your audience something to do - a quiz, a challenge, a puzzle, a discussion point. This could be something you give out or display as they’re arriving and settling - that way you give them the confidence to take part and they’ll be engaged before you even open your mouth.

Tom’s Top Tip #2: Laughter is good at any age!Anecdotes abound, and there is a plethora of quirky personalities to call on for any subject you may find yourself presenting. Find them, and use them! We all like a giggle and a bit of humour gets everyone involved as well as providing light relief during tough topics.

Tom’s Top Tip #3: Why should I care?Show everyone how your content fits into their lives. There are links, whatever your subject and whoever your audience, or they wouldn’t have been inspired to book you in the first place!

Tom’s Top Tip #4: Everyone loves a story!The twists and turns of scientific endeavour, and the characters who played their part in them, are part of what makes our scientific journeys so engaging for all ages.

Our job is to inspire our audiences to

delve a little deeper, regardless of age, because science is

truly ageless