Public Engagement Training
Cardiff Science Festival is returning from the 18-21st of Feb, 2021. As part of the festival this year, we are working with the Royal Society of Chemistry to provide some free public engagement training. This is a great opportunity for experienced and inexperienced science communicators to practice your skills and learn something new, to help with both your Cardiff Science Festival event and other general public engagement. The training will be provided by the award winning science engagement company Science Made Simple. All the training sessions are free and you can go to as many or as few as you wish to. Details of the 9 sessions are below, along with signup links.
Intro to Public Engagement and Cardiff Science Festival - Monday 25th January, 12:00 - 13:00
Come along for an informal discussion and information session about why public engagement is important, and what motivations and barriers you might have for doing it. We will discuss how these link to the aims of Cardiff Science Festival and tell you more about the range of events you can get involved with depending on our skills and interests. Find out what kind of public engagement person you are and meet others who can help support you in your activity ideas.
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Presenting to camera - Wednesday 27th January, 12:00 - 13:00
Skills to bring out the best in your research using your mobile phone camera. Its small, very powerful, sits in your pocket and beeps a lot. What is it? Your mobile phone! Join Science Made Simple as we practice good presenting technique on video, using your phone to make a short video about your research and getting this onto social media. In the session will produce one small piece to camera for use on social media, with some nice homework to make and publish another piece. Please bring along to the session your phone, a piece of scrap paper, some sticky tape and if possible any smallish hand-held item that could represent your research.
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Adapting technical language - Junk the Jargon - Friday 29th January, 16:00 - 17:00
Join Science Made Simple for an hour of discussion and exercises about the technical language we use in our research, and how we can adapt what we say for different audiences.
Access Passcode: gya1qSh%
Your messages on social media - Monday 1st February, 12:00 - 13:00
Learn how to get your message across on social media, both to promote your event and to run a social media event!
Access Passcode: Dth6P$!h
To Zoom and beyond - using interactive tools to engage online - Wednesday 3rd February, 16.00-17.00
We’ve all moved fast and hard into a world of non-stop meetings and presentations through various video platforms. If keeping an audience engaged when in the room was tricky, this new reality can feel even harder. Research has shown video conferencing takes much more energy than face to face sessions. But there are effective tools to help, and techniques that can make your audience feel more connected to you (and hence any message you are delivering). Science Made Simple is an organisation that has honed the skills of audience engagement over the last 20 years and we have been working (fast) on adapting these skills and tools to an online context. Using Zoom as the example platform (but with tips that apply to most video conferencing software) I will show you how you can deliver to your audience, class or colleagues in an interactive and engaging way. Prepare to get involved!
Access Passcode: Ob=!+P65
Adapting technical language - Junk the Jargon - Friday 5th February, 12:00 - 13:00
Join Science Made Simple for an hour of discussion and exercises about the technical language we use in our research, and how we can adapt what we say for different audiences.
Access Passcode: dz*keb9r
Street theatre techniques to hook your audience - Monday 8th February, 12:00 - 13:00
Science busking is all about using the transferrable skills of street performance to help you engage audiences with research. Science busking is high energy, fast paced and fun, featuring in science festivals and shopping centres all over the world. It’s all about taking your research to where the people are!
Access Passcode: Y65*4k%X
Working with audiences with additional needs - Wednesday 10th February, 12:00 - 13:00
Many audiences are left behind because of additional needs that they have. Learning how to include these audiences and adapt elements of your public engagement to be more accessible can engage new audiences and help you look at what you’re communicating in an exciting new way. Come along to find out more about how to engage with audiences with additional needs.
Access Passcode: QXHu345*
Mentoring time - Friday 12th February, 12:00 - 13:00
One-to-one mentoring sessions, in addition to the scheduled training events for any researcher wishing to further develop their skills and materials for their chosen event.