Description
For more than 15 years, I have had the joy of designing and delivering activities for the National Space Academy and other partners to engage young people and their families with space science. To date projects I have worked on have reached millions of people in the UK and beyond and I would relish the opportunity to discuss what, in my experience, makes combining STEM with the arts so successful and why a broad approach to getting buy-in into space is so vital to Space and Astronomy. Projects I would love to discuss include:
Outreach at festivals, including the Universal Orchestra (recreating the Big Bang through simple music)
Working on a suite of activities to accompany an immersive play around space junk, incorporating drama and STEM
Students exploring and explaining space topics to the public through the production of vlogs
Combining music, dance and space within SEN learning
Collaborating with artists to produce engaging, visually stunning children's space books (I have worked with Dorling Kindersley on multiple space books, authoring 2 myself so far)
I would also like to discuss the challenges we face in engagement today - dwindling attention spans, information overload and discuss how taking a more creative approach, and allowing those we are engaging with to explore space and science through other artistic outlets can combat this, to bring meaningful interactions with lasting impact.
