Outreach
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The Ministry of Sense is a fun show that travels around science festivals and secondary schools. The shows cover details of the work performed at CERN, as well as using interactive games to convey some of the intricacies of statistics.
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July 2016
Daresbury Open Week: LHC Roadshow
Each year, Daresbury Laboratory hosts an open week. This is a fantastic event where people can get up-close looks at the various pieces of apparatus housed at Daresbury, along with a huge array of guest exhibition areas.
I was involved with the LHC Roadshow, which included an opportunity to try on the emergency breathing apparatus required while in the LHC tunnels, as well as a mock up of the tunnel itself.
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June 2016
The Big Bang Fair
Oldham hosted its first Big Bang Fair at which I ran a stand. Given that this was the first time I had been the sole organiser of a stand, I was amazed at how smoothly the event went.
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June 2016
Science at Work
Another event organised by my friends at the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre in Widnes. Here a few scientists were given some space to talk to secondary school students and to try and convey what life is like as a scientist, along with some of the work we do.
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May 2016
Pint of Science
Pint of Science is an international event which takes place every May in hundreds of venues across 10 countries. The format of the event revolves around a getting two or three scientists to give an introductory talk into the their work. These talks take place, as the name may suggest, over a pint in a bar, and are aimed such that no prior knowledge of the subject is required.
A first for me; in this event I stayed out of the spotlight and was instead involved purely with the organisation of the event.
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March 2016
I'm a Scientist Get Me Out of Here
I'm a Scientist Get me out of here is a UK wide event, which is loosely based on the celebrity TV show of a similar name. Each day students vote for their favourite scientist, and the winner of each group at the end of the week is awarded £500 to spend on their own outreach programme. Luckily for us the challenges were less centered on eating insects, but instead revolved around answering students' questions. This was by far the most exhausting outreach events I had taken part in.
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July 2014
Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
Another visit to one of my favourite events. At this point becoming quite expert on the stand, though it had now evolved from how to find the Higgs boson, to how to precisely measure it.
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June 2014
International Festival of Business
The International Festival of Business, Runcorn, was another event I got involved with thanks to the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre in Widnes. This event was designed as a field trip for secondary schools, where groups of five or more would sit down with professionals. Said professionals would talk for a couple of minutes about what they do, and lead into an informal chat.
As the name suggests, this was primarily meant to encourage people to follow a career in business, however myself and two other scientists managed to worm our way in, potentially corrupting those minds towards a life in science.
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June 2014
Pi: Platform for Investigation
Making full use of the Collider Exhibition, the Museum of Science and Industry hosted an exhibition on accelerator and particle physics. Once again the stand I worked on was a variation of that used for the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition previously.
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May 2014
MoSI Collider Exhibit
Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry was host to the Collider Exhibition. A fantastic exhibition containing parts of antiquated particle physics apparatus and video interviews with the scientists. For the grand opening, the exhibit was filled with particle physicis researchers based in Manchester to talk with the visitors.
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October 2013
Manchester Science Festival
Manchester Science Festival is an annually event and comprises multiple locations across the city. This year I was involved with a variation of the stand from the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition earlier in the year. We set up shop in Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry.
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September 2013
TEDx Oldham
At this point I'd already been a long fan of the TED and TEDx talks on YouTube, and lept at the opportunity to be the opening speaker at Oldham's first TEDx event. This was a great step forwards for me, being able to speak comfortably to a large audience, both in the room, as well as the livestream.
Incidentally, you may recognise the title of my talk from Jon Butterworth's book of the same name published the following year. This lead to Jon referencing the talk in a rather nice guardian article on the subject of physicists independently coming up with the same idea, as in the case of the Higgs mechanism.
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August 2013
Just So Festival
A nostalgic trip back into the world of physics busking. This time at the Just So Festival in Cheshire. Like previous physics busking events I've taken part in, this is a fantastic opportunity to engage the enthusiasm of primary school children, and to help nudge them towards a STEM career.
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June 2013
Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
The Royal Society hosts its Summer Science Exhibition each year in London, and is a popular field trip for secondary schools in the area. These events are some of my favourite to work on due to the amount of effort that it put into the stands.
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June 2013
SciBar Widnes
SciBar are events run across the UK, where scientists give a talk in a bar over a couple of drinks on their current research. As the location suggests, this targets primarily adults. This was the first time I had been the sole scientist at an outreach event, taking on a lot more responsibility than in previous events.
In my opinion this is a demographic that is often overlooked by outreach programmes. A lot of the time outreach focusses on children, on the potential next generation of scientists. Whereas I think that more effort should be put into reaching out to young adults. If we can make new parents excited about science, then they are likely to pass on their enthusiasm to their children. But this is a rant for another day...
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April 2013
Substandard Model of Particle Physics
There is a thriving culture in particle physics of releasing a torrent of jokes on the first of April each year. Some of the time these are meant to encourage public engagement, at other times these are just meant to be a bit of fun, as is the case here.
The Substandard Model of Particle Physics, as you may have guessed, was a parody of The Standard Model. OK, so most of the jokes can only be understood if you have a physics degree, and the rest only if you've worked at CERN, so it doesn't exactly fall into the typical category of science outreach.
A lot of people who study physics leave science after graduation. Whether this is because of the financial allure of working in industry, or due to the intimidation of imposter syndrome, I hope these fun displays of life as a physicist help to encourage people to stay in the field.
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December 2012
Decay
This one may not strictly speaking fall under the definition of science outreach, but bare with me. Decay is a zombie film that is set and filmed at CERN. The premise: we found the Higgs boson... and it turns people into zombies. Almost everyone involved with writing, producing, and acting in the film were physicists at CERN. For a better description, and to watch online or download the full film, you can go to the official Decay website.
Decay was just a bit of fun, but I think it is inadvertently a great piece of outreach. The essence of outreach isn't just to get people interested in science, but to encourage people to choose it as a career. I suspect that part of the reason more people don't pursue a career is because of the monomaniacal scientist stereotype with no social skills. Decay did a fantastic job of showing that scientists at CERN are just regular people who have fun in their spare time. Ironically, turning scientists into zombies helped humanise them.
Decay was almost complete by the time I started my PhD and got involved with the project. I helped on location for one or two of the last scenes to be shot, and was heavily involved with the marketing and organisation of the premiere. I'm not going to pretend that the discovery of the Higgs boson a few months before the release didn't make my marketing job very easy.
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October 2011
School Visit: Oldham Hulme Grammar School
My first piece of outreach as a PhD student was to return to my old school and give a brief introduction to my research. Very brief. At this point I'd been a PhD student for about a month, and found it far too easy to fit what I knew about being a PhD student into a five minute talk. So instead concentrated more on why an undergraduate in physics is a good path to follow.
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July 2010
Physics Busking
The second in the set of physics busking events from that summer. This time on the promenad outside of London's Southbank Centre. Here we would approach passers by and present a range of 'physics tricks'.
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June 2010
Physics in the Field
Physics busking at the Bradford Mela. This is a family festival at which we would perform 'physics tricks' which help to illustrate some simple quirks of physics. These were for the most part aimed at primary school children and have online resources so they can be repeated at home.
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November 2009
Rock Radio Interview
I was interviewed on Rock Radio, a local Manchester radio station, to help explain the significance of the LHC gaining the record for the world's highest-energy particle accelerator.
