Close
January to February 2018
Training
The Natural History Public Engagement Bootcamp is a four week course tailored specifically to supporting early career researchers and postgraduate students who carry out research on the natural environment and are interested in public engagement. The four sessions that comprises the course will be interactive and provide practical opportunity to explore the variety of ways in which researchers can interact and involve public groups.
Families at a science stall at a science festival
As part of a comedy night a researcher shares their work to a live audience
Researchers carrying out a post-mortem of a specimen as part of their research in a public event
A PhD student pitching a project to a public audience for their votes to secure funding
Families engaging with a scientist on a stall during a outdoor science festival
A researcher during a late opening of the Grant Museum of Zoology discussing their work
Family participants taking part in a large scale whale specimen conservation project
During an art/science collaboration, where members of the public create works of art, a researcher dissects a squid specimen
Using specimens and objects a researcher talks to a small group about their work
The Natural History Public Engagement Bootcamp aims to:
Increase and develop postgraduate students’ skills relevant to public engagement
- Develop postgraduate students’ knowledge and attitudes to enable them to embed public engagement into their research activity
- Build a community of peer support between students attending the course
- Enable the creation and enhancement of internal and external networks between students, staff and organisations
- Create and enable opportunities to experiment with, reflect on, evaluate and learn from different types of public engagement
The course is developed in collaboration with the Discovery and Learning team at ZSL.
Course outline:
Session one will provide a background of what public engagement with research and context for developing participants’ skills around public engagement.
Session two will allow participants to meet practitioners and hear first-hand experiences of public engagement and understand the importance of communication and practical tips on public speaking.
Session three will revolve around critical reflection of examples of public engagement with research and will provide practical skills looking at activity formats.
Session four will provide practical skills where participants can plan and implement their ideas around public engagement with their research and understand the importance of evaluation.
Deadline for applications close on Sunday 21 January 2018. If you would like to join in the training please fill out the application form and return it to Dean Veall
