Pen-Yuan Hsing, Ustinov Global Citizenship Programme – Café Scientifique
Last Monday (19 June 2017), four members of the Ustinov Global Citizenship Programme helped lead science outreach activities at the Belmont Community School Science Evening. As a Café Scientifique team member, I’m happy to have been part of that group and we are all grateful to Ms Julie Ryder and Mr Valentine Maduko from the school for letting us participate.
We used material left from last year’s Ustinov Science Day, but brought them to an audience of kids and their parents from the Durham community. We played with slinkies, tried to identify animal skulls, poured colourless carbon dioxide onto a candle’s flame, and set water and a 20 pound note on fire!
What’s most important is that this is the first, small step we are taking to building up a working relationship with local schools. The Global Citizenship Programmes hopes that not only will everyone in Durham learn about our diverse and international background, but also that Ustinov postgraduates from across the world can learn from this community, too.
Monday’s event was just a small taste of what we’d like to do, and we hope you can join us on this journey. Here are some reflections from our wonderful Café Scientifique member Emine on what she did over the past year.
Emine Gurbuz, Volunteer in Ustinov Global Citizenship Program – Café Scientifique
What do we do? Ustinov Café Sci is a platform where anyone interested in science is welcome to participate – either as a speaker or audience. As a member of Café Sci at Ustinov, I have contributed to organizing several events including talks about current scientific issues (e.g. ageing and how society reacts to it, how we deal with information in a post-factual world) discussion panels (e.g. surveillance of privacy and technology behind it) and science outreach projects in local schools.
What I have gained from it? While doing so, I have met many inspiring people within the college and outside, I have been able to adapt my new environment in Durham easily and quickly, and gained valuable experience in organizing science events that are relevant for the current issues and at the same time they appeal to everyone with a personal or professional interest in science.
What is next? In the upcoming year, we aim to organize more interactive science events where the audience can actively participate and we hope to work with local schools in the science outreach projects. To be able to do all of these, we need more people in our team next year, so join us and be part of this amazing experience!
This blog post by Pen-Yuan Hsing and Emine Gurbuz and accompanying images are shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, which means you are free to share and build upon them as long as you share them under the same terms.