Tagged / Public Engagment

The Science Bus is coming to town!

The Science Bus is coming!

How clean is the air on your street, and can you measure this yourself? Do you know what lives in your yogurt? And how can you charge your phone when you don’t have access to electricity? We want to find out with you! The Science Bus brings you workshops and tools to find the answers to these questions and investigate the world around you.

The Science Bus will travel across Europe in search of folk remedies until November 2017. A folk remedy is an everyday trick or “life hack” that anyone can use to make or fix just about anything. Some of this knowledge might even have been around for hundreds (maybe thousands!) of years.

In partnership with the Student Project Bank and SportBU, the Science Bus will be hosted at Slades Farm Family Festival on Sunday 16th July and at Hengistbury Head Visitor Centre from 18th – 21st July. Come along and take part in a workshop!

Why are we on a hunt for folk remedies?

We’d like to put them to the test! How do these remedies work? What are the ingredients? What are the scientific principles behind them? And what can we do to improve them? By combining old knowledge with new technologies, we want to make these clever folk remedies accessible to everyone.

The Science Bus is hosting workshops all around Europe to engage curious minds and encourage people to share their life hacks. The Science Bus will stop at festivals, campsites and marketplaces. In the workshops, our captains will investigate these folk remedies with you. They’ll bring along handy instructions and Do-It-Yourself (research) tools for you to build simple, scientific instruments. This is science for everyone!

Why is the Science Bus important?

We are so used to buying everything we need (and more) that we tend to forget that we can produce and fix things ourselves. We’re not sure exactly what’s in our food, where our products are made , what is right or wrong, or what our options are. Our goal with the Science Bus is to raise questions, encourage critical thinking and investigate our daily environment together. Why? We want as many people as possible to experience that making things themselves and gathering knowledge is both easy and fun!

Catch the Science Bus

The Science Bus will be driving around Europe until November 2017: from the UK to Slovenia, Spain, Germany and many places in-between. The Science Bus captains will share their adventures and discoveries via our website and social media. Do you know any clever folk remedies? Share them with our captains or via our website so that everyone can make use of it! Get involved and follow the Science Bus via togethersciencebus.eu or #sciencebus and be sure to follow it on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Who is behind the Science Bus?

The Science Bus project is realised by a group of enthusiastic makers from Waag Society – institute for art, science and technology – based in Amsterdam and is part of the European project, “Doing It Together Science.” Within this project, research institutions work together with science galleries, museums and art institutions to engage as many people as possible with citizen science. By hosting innovative workshops, exhibitions and activities all around Europe, the eleven partners show that citizen science is an accessible and fun way to explore the world around you. For more information check out togetherscience.eu.

Find out how to submit your Festival of Learning 2016 Proposal

Festival of Learning, Knowledge Exchange, R & KE Operations

The Festival of Learning enters its fourth year in 2016 and will be running from Saturday 25 – Wednesday 29 June. It’s a fantastic public engagement opportunity for BU to showcase the great research coming out of the university. The call for proposals is now open and the process for submitting an application is simple:

  1. Think of an idea for an event that demonstrates your research – will it be innovating and interesting to members of the public? Watch our video from 2015 for some inspiration.
  2. Decide if you want your event to be a bookable event that people can sign up for or whether you’d like a run a stall or drop in activity instead (i.e. an activity based on passing traffic rather than pre-bookings)
  3. Consider who you want to be your target audience (adults, families, businesses etc.)
  4. Consider whether your event meets the Festivals objectives, what you plan to do during the event, how it will appeal to your intended audience and what your attendees will get out of attending the event.
  5. Complete the Festival of Learning event application before January 31st 2016: see here (We are unable to accept late proposals due to the tight turn around between the call closing and review by the panel.)

If you would like to discuss an idea in more detail, please call/ email Naomi Kay (Public Engagement Officer) 61342/ nkay@bouremouth.ac.uk or click here for more detailed information about submitting a proposal.