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Space Connections were funded to develop an outreach activity - People's STEM PhD - to be delivered in conjunction with the University of Bradford at the Bradford Science Festival in October 2012. The activity aims to form a bridge between public and university, by running taster events and sessions in the community before inviting them on to campus to participate in research on astrophysics.

Outreach Methodologies

Space Connections have run focus groups with a variety of secondary schools in the locality as well as drop in events at the YMCA Culture Fusion to find out which subjects young people would be interested in exploring further - the subject identified was space exploration and observation.

To date, 20 groups of young people and communities have stated they would like to be involved with the project which will involve an astronomical observation theme, appropriate as:

• this is a subject that is easily accessible to most people
• it can be linked into other current programmes such as Dark Sky Discovery
• the subject can be accessed at many different levels
• there are active astronomical outreach programmes at partner Universities. These include the Bradford Robotic Telescope at the University of Bradford and the AstroCampus at the University of York

The public will be involved in the generation of data through:

• Individual and family participation - data input into website
• Guided observation – small groups led by STEM Student Ambassadors, inputting data into website
• Mass group observation at one of the newly identified Dark Skies Sites - data captured on the night

How other organisations could adapt the model

The model could be easily replicated in other areas and other schools of research provided appropriate partnerships are in place. For the past 6 years, Space Connections has co ordinated the YES-NET (Yorkshire Education STEM Network). This is a virtual enterprise of STEM Education Providers and means that when projects and opportunities arise, there are ready-made partnerships able to spring into action.

Space Connections would be willing to share their experience and best practice with any interested party.

Find Out More

You can find out more about the project by reading their final report below, or by heading to their project web-pages.

Space Connections Final Report