STEM Induction
Jul. 24th, 2010 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatOn Thursday I was "trained" to be a STEM Ambassador. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and STEMNET is a national public engagement network, primarily aimed at working with children. As a result we all had to be CRB-checked during the session. Or at least our CRB check had to be put in motion, which seemed to involve a lot of confusion about identity documents and proof of address.
The session was actually a lot more useful than many training sessions I've been on. There was a fair bit of useful advice on handling groups of children, with a rider that you should never be left alone with them and so should always be able to hand over to a teacher if necessary.
Mostly STEMNET acts as a brokering service, linking the volunteers with schools, charities and other organisations who are looking for someone to help with a lesson, careers day or other event but they also provide resources containing ideas for demonstrations and so forth. In the induction session we were all encouraged to try out a "science busk" which consisted essentially of a quick science-based trick or demonstration. I think I'd want a rather better grasp of the science behind each one than was provided before I did it in public, but none of them depended on particularly esoteric science so that wouldn't be that hard, I think. I certainly thought I might volunteer to science busk at the upcoming Manchester Science Festival.
I was interested to note that of 13 people attending the session, 10 were female, including![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_ladylark to our mutual surprise. That ratio was striking considering that STEM is generally a male dominated area and I wonder if there is some cultural effect in play that makes public understanding work of this kind something of more interest to women than men.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/12941.html.
The session was actually a lot more useful than many training sessions I've been on. There was a fair bit of useful advice on handling groups of children, with a rider that you should never be left alone with them and so should always be able to hand over to a teacher if necessary.
Mostly STEMNET acts as a brokering service, linking the volunteers with schools, charities and other organisations who are looking for someone to help with a lesson, careers day or other event but they also provide resources containing ideas for demonstrations and so forth. In the induction session we were all encouraged to try out a "science busk" which consisted essentially of a quick science-based trick or demonstration. I think I'd want a rather better grasp of the science behind each one than was provided before I did it in public, but none of them depended on particularly esoteric science so that wouldn't be that hard, I think. I certainly thought I might volunteer to science busk at the upcoming Manchester Science Festival.
I was interested to note that of 13 people attending the session, 10 were female, including
the_ladylark to our mutual surprise. That ratio was striking considering that STEM is generally a male dominated area and I wonder if there is some cultural effect in play that makes public understanding work of this kind something of more interest to women than men.This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/12941.html.