During 2010 IET volunteers and staff came together to host stands at a variety of science fairs. Two of the biggest in the UK were Imagineering at the Royal Bath and West Show and the Cheltenham Science Festival. Although both events had their problems to overcome, members, volunteers and IET staff pulled together to deliver experiences that were loved by visitors.

This year’s Imagineering Fair at the Royal Bath and West Show won the Gold Award for Best Feature in Show for the third year running, something that all involved are very proud of. The IET stand was run by the IET Bristol Local Network (LN), with support from members across the South West LNs.

This year the LNs and IET Education 5-19 staff worked together on the ‘Event in a Box’ concept. Unlike the worksheets of the same name, this took the concept to the next level providing volunteers with a crate full of materials that they can use to deliver innovative hands-on activities for children. These activities and demos provided by the IET were adapted from in-school project ideas, and the feedback volunteers provided from the event has been invaluable to the IET HQ in taking this kit forward for future science fairs in other regions, including Cheltenham itself.

Interactive education

The three main themes focused around building a K’Nex racing buggy, using interesting materials: where children could play with different materials to see how they interact, and hydrodynamic Plasticine shape design – where children could design Plasticine shapes which would either drop very quickly or slowly through a column of water. They were able to see their place on the leaderboards as they progressed through the activities.

“The ‘Event in a Box’ relates to our Faraday schools programme allowing kids to take out materials that they could use. The idea was to make it useable in schools but also in event situations like the Imagineering show,” says Gareth James, head of Education 5-19.

“So we made it available to members to trial and see if it worked. It was an interesting experiment: the feedback we got from the Bristol LN was that some things worked in the kit really nicely and others just didn’t in that environment.

“This information is great because it helps us to modify the kit until we’ve got something that works nicely for events as well as schools. It’s a developmental process. We develop and control it to an extent, but the members are the ones that have to make it work on the ground so it needs to be something that they’re comfortable with,” he explains.

“As a consequence the Cheltenham festival was just a few weeks afterwards, and we presented them with a different set of kits, more hands-on, interactive activities rather than presentation materials. It’s probably going to be a set of materials that evolve,” he muses.

Cheltenham Science Festival

IET LN development staff were invited to get involved with the Cheltenham Science Festival earlier in the year, and began to put out feelers to see if members in the area would be able to run a stand at the event. Members were interested but knew they couldn’t dedicate all the time needed to pull everything together and so the team turned to Education 5-19 to help put a stand together.

With a lot of liaising between member volunteers and Education 5-19, Local Network coordinator Michelle Busson and Local Network development executive Deborah-Claire McKenzie oversaw the logistics of getting the stand to the event, pulling together items to give away and recruiting volunteers to be there each day. It was a lot of hard work for all involved – especially the volunteers who gave up their time, but a lot was learnt and all were happy with the final results.

“Liaising was a little fragmented as we didn’t know exactly who was going to be involved or what resources would be available (until quite late),” notes volunteer Tim Callaghan. “But we all found working on the stand an enjoyable experience, even though it was hard work,” adds volunteer George Billingham.

“We learnt a few lessons about the design of the stand, the popularity of various events and freebies on offer. We had to work out how to make the best use of what was available, but I thought it was an excellent event,” continues fellow volunteer Paul Jones. “With over 4,000 visitors over the course of the festival, we gained unprecedented exposure for the IET Gloucester LN.”

A learning process for all

Everyone worked together to make both events a great success, and feedback is leading to further improvements in the planning and understanding the provisions needed for future science fairs.

All the teams - IET staff and the volunteers on the ground - are continuing to liaise to understand each others needs and how they can improve on what they offer at such events.

“We each had different approaches and as a result of this we’ve begun to meet at a regional level to discuss a number of ideas, such as getting a common understanding of what resources are needed for these kinds of events,” says Russell Haines of the Bristol LN. “I think the demos and hands-on activities we used provided a good baseline from which we can learn and improve,” he says.

“Education 5-19 is very keen to work with members and LNs, utilising their experience to engage as much as possible,” says James. “We’re a small group of staff in the office and so our members are a great resource and we want to help them deliver great events. This ‘one team’ approach is very important for that reason, as we can draw from members to find out what they need. Over the next 12 months we’re going to try to look at what we can do to provide a really great package that they can take away to any of these events,” he concludes.