BU Research Blog

It is really important to hold events at the Festival of Learning that not only satisfy and engage the adult community but also the children of our community too. Teaching, inspiring and sharing our knowledge with those of a younger age will hopefully encourage them, to also be researchers in the future.

So, why not hold an ‘adventure’ or ‘treasure hunt’ style event at the Festival of Learning? This will encourage children and families to participate and create exciting new memories.

Children and young adults are engaged by events that involves them participating in a hands-on activity where they can either create or discover something. These are just some ideas off the top of my head, but if you have research interests in ancient history, history of the World, archaeology, dinosaurs, time travel and space – an adventure or treasure hunt style event would work extremely well in sharing your research with the younger generation in an exciting and engaging way.

Here are some inspiring examples of this type of event:

The Dinosaur Museum, Dorset regularly holds an event named the Great Dinosaur Hunt. This is where children search for hints and clues in order to solve a dinosaur mystery. Those that crack the code and solve the mystery win a special certificate.

At BU, our forensic experts could run an event which would enable attendees to solve a mystery and learn how ‘mystery solving’ is done. This would appeal to both the younger and elder community. Or perhaps if you have research in ancient history, you could do an event on ‘solving the murder of … in ancient times’.

Passport to the past was an event held at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas this year. This event allowed children to attend a drop-in session where they could design their own ‘passport to the past before taking a journey round the ancient world to learn more about our casts?’ Perhaps if you have a research interest in space you could host an event similar to this like, ‘Passport to space’ or ‘Your time travel ticket’, where children could be educated on space and time travel.

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If you would like to get involved in the Festival of Learning 2014 by hosting an event like ‘Fact or Fiction‘ and/or have some exciting ideas for any other type of public engagement activity, please register your interest with either myself,  Naomi kay or my colleague Rebecca Edwards.