On 1st-2nd March 2023, the ASDC team delivered a two-day, in-person training academy at Xplore! Science Discovery Centre as part of the Explore Your Universe (EYU) national science engagement programme.
This event was funded by STFC, allowing support for practitioners from a broad range of sectors to attend. Delegates included community engagement practitioners from science centres, museums, universities, and outreach organisations working with Wonder audiences who all came together for inspiration, information, and to learn skills and approaches directly from community leaders, as well as networking and opportunities to share each other's challenges and inspiring practice.
Location, location, location
Xplore! Science Discovery Centre recently relocated to the heart of Wrexham city centre to be physically accessible to people from the local communities, a move which has created new opportunities for many more people to visit and enjoy the centre’s science activities.
“I saw people passing through their café area who weren’t necessarily visiting the science centre, but instead were comfortably engaging with the centre as a community location, building familiarity and also being of use to people in the city.”
Kierann Shah, ASDC Project Director
Xplore! ran Phase 4 of the ASDC Explore Your Universe programme which started in 2018, with the aim to promote the building of equitable partnerships between science centres and local youth and community groups who were not currently engaging in science and discovery centre activities. The programme involved key elements such as multiple engagement methodology and co-production to challenge assumptions and power dynamics, and nurture trusted relationships between science centres, community partners and participants.
Sharing challenges, together
This two-day training event provided an opportunity for new groups of people to come together, with science and discovery centres, museums and organisations showing commitment and enthusiasm to openly share the difficulties, the successes and continue their learning journeys towards more equitable and inclusive science engagement practice.
“After the last four-years working together, the absolute joy of being hosted by Xplore! was being able to meet and learn directly from their trusted community partnerships, such as Siôn Edwards, an exceptionally experienced playworker from The Venture/Y Fenter, and Claire Schmidlin from STEAMtistic who spoke with such authenticity and understanding about key aspects we must all consider when working with neurodiverse audiences. All our community session leaders challenged us and enthralled us in equal measure. It was, quite simply, hugely motivating! And feedback from delegates already shows a huge breadth of action and reflections being taken back to home institutions from our 2 days together.”
Shaaron Leverment, Chief Executive ASDC
We also took a deeper dive into co-production with a workshop run by Wyn Griffiths from SMASHfestUK & Middlesex University and smaller group sessions that enabled delegates to take part in Makaton workshops with Sam Stephen, a Makaton tutor who has worked in museums and schools, culminating in a frank and honest discussion on embedding EDI for organisational change.
Themes from the event
One of the key themes from the event was the importance of being proactive and intentional, rather than trying to make things fit retroactively. Inclusion should be built in from the start and takes a lot of time and often external support. Integration is when allowances are made afterwards, but if someone has to ask for allowances, will they feel truly included? Finding time for practitioner reflection and sharing practice is key, to be able to learn from mistakes (and we all make mistakes!) and to absorb that learning. This event created space to both challenge our business-as-usual practice and for practitioner sharing and reflection, for both science and discovery centres, museums and STFC Wonder grant holders from a range or organisations.
Throughout the two days, many of the discussion points linked back to the learning from the ASDC Inclusion Handbook: a guide towards equity and inclusion for informal science learning practitioners which has been written as part of the EYU project evaluation and legacy, building from the work supported by STFC across the sector for the past four years. Please find a link to download the digital version of the handbook at the bottom of this page.
A few of these key points for community engagement and inclusion included:
- Make time to build relationships, to find common ground, to allow groups to express their needs and to then work the logistics and around their needs.
- Who has the power? Who decides? Who is in the room when decisions are made? There is an ultimate importance of power dynamics that prevents equitable practice.
- Meet people where THEY are, not where we - as STEM engagement organisations - want, expect, or assume them to be… and beware using these assumptions to scope funding bids!
- Go back to the WHY of this work, and how understanding our own personal motivations can allow us to be more authentic with people which helps to build trust. As Jackie Bell reflected in a session about Youth Work principles and their role in formal science learning; "…keep asking yourself, am I doing what is best for me or what's best for the group?"
Can politics prevent play?
As well as recognising personal motivations – things like interest in working with specific communities, wanting science to be for ‘everyone’, being enthused by new challenges, or even just because they find it fun – the political context was raised as a concern. In the session on using play approaches, the group learned that shockingly the numbers of Adventure Playgrounds has gone from 500 to just 150 in England. In the session on Youth Work approaches the speaker talked about how funding cuts have eviscerated the sector since 2010. The impact of 10 years of austerity was already affecting children’s life chances and education and decimating the lives of disabled people before the impact of the pandemic.
“This is the context in which our organisations work and whilst science centres and museums hold on to a perception that they must be seen to be “apolitical” I think we are at a point where not speaking out about the impacts of political choices is no longer apolitical.”
Kierann Shah
Time for reflections
Creating time and space to come together and share these stories has given the team lots of proto-ideas on how ASDC can continue to provide support, advice, and peer-networking for the sector. They were delighted by the stories of how including people who may otherwise be overlooked leads to incredible interactions including inspiring, challenging, and validating experiences for practitioners.
In summary, there will always be more to learn and implement and organisations should recognise this. Everyone is on a journey to improve equity and inclusion, and by sharing inspiring practice and collaborating we can ensure everyone feels welcomed and part of the science learning community.
“Thank you for all the organisation both in advance of the seasons and whilst there; it all ran brilliantly!”
“What a great experience! Inspired beyond limits :) thank you team!”
“Such varied sessions which will all be really useful for us, thanks very much for organising this!”
“The whole 2 days were excellent, and it felt like an open and relaxed atmosphere where we were encouraged to participate without worrying about getting it wrong!”
“Really well organised day. And the fact that it was fully funded was excellent.”
"Thank you so much, I gained a lot from the Training Academy and felt that every session was very useful!”
“I thought the training academy was very worthwhile and it gave me plenty to think about and reflect on. A big thank you to all who took part and helped host and organise the two days.”
Feedback from delegates
ASDC would like to thank everyone who came to the event, the speakers, and the team at Xplore! for hosting.
If you would like to find out more about this training academy, or the Explore Your Universe project, please email the team.
Download the ASDC Inclusion Handbook: