To celebrate the Best Practice winners 2010 – 2011, we will be
running a special series of Best Practice blogs over the coming days.
These articles are written by the clubs themselves, and in many cases
will appear in English and the language of the club. We hope you enjoy
learning about the 2010 – 2011 Best Practice projects and take away
ideas and inspiration for the future!
Programme Focus Objective: Ensure equal access to education and training for women and girls throughout their lifespan.
Skirting Science is a one day event organised by SI
Weston-super-Mare in collaboration with North Somerset Aspire Partnership. The aim is to encourage and enthuse girls to
consider careers in science, engineering and mathematics.
The third Skirting Science took place at Hans Price Academy
in Weston-super-Mare, UK on Friday May 13, 2011. We were very brave to choose Friday 13th
but the first event took place on Friday March 13, 2009 and that seemed to go
well! There were 230 girls attending the day from 12 schools in North Somerset
and Bristol, UK. Local businesses and
Universities provided 18 interactive workshops.
We arrived at the Academy at 8am, ready to start the
day. We had put up signs and maps all
around the school the previous evening.
As you can imagine, we were all quite nervous, hoping that all the
planning would pay off. We had drawn up
a timeline – almost minute by minute for the day – so that everyone knew what
jobs they had been allocated.
The workshop providers – they are the people who were
running the workshops – started arriving from 8am, to be met by
Soroptimists. They made sure that
everyone knew which rooms they had been allocated, that they had everything
they needed and, of course, to offer them tea or coffee. I knew from previous years that there would
be a lot demand on my time. As usual,
there were the questions:
- Where is the ruler and stopwatch?
- Is there another overhead
projector? - Are there any scissors and
pencils?
We had printed Thank You cards for everyone involved and I wanted
to find some time to write these before the opening speeches. I managed to sit down to write them whilst a
Soroptimist made sure that I had a cup of tea and a cereal bar.
By 9.30am, I was relieved to hear that the last of the
workshop providers had arrived. The
Mayor of Weston-super-Mare was greeted by our President. Then, our opening speaker arrived, Dr Preeti
Kaur. She wanted her presentation loaded
on to the computer. There was someone
designated to do that. At this time, the
schools were being escorted from the coach park by girls from the Academy. Following registration, the girls assembled
in the hall, sitting in order of their first workshop.
After a welcome and introductions from the Academy and SI
Weston-super-Mare, our opening speaker, Dr Preet Kaur, gave an inspiring talk
about her research into extreme environments and the organisms that thrive
within them (known as extremophiles).
She told us that these play a key role in the understanding of the
origins and evolution of life on Earth and the discovery of life elsewhere in
the universe. Then, all the girls were
guided to the first workshop by girls from the Academy.
Each girl participated in 3 workshops over the day – these
were allocated before the event from the choices that the girls had made. These included:
- Optometry
- Pain-free vaccination
- Genes in a bottle
- Maths Amazes
- The Chemistry of Perfume
- Dancing – strictly for robots
- Design and build your own Bloodhound Supersonic
car - Rollercoaster Ride
- Racing Air Engines
- Earthquake Engineering
I had an interview on Radio Bristol during the morning and
that took some time as it happened later than was planned. Two girls were also interviewed and I think
that they were much better than me at thinking on their feet! The only slight difficulty one of the girls
encountered was the question –“What chemical element has the symbol Fe?” It was just as well she had a scientist with
her!
The chemistry of perfume workshop (above)
There were 2 workshop sessions before the girls had their
lunch and then one in the afternoon. I
tried to visit all the workshops, to meet the people with whom I had been
communicating by email and to see a little of the content of the workshops. All visitors were escorted round the workshops. I had the pleasure of taking our local MP,
John Penrose, to see the Bloodhound Supersonic Car as he was particularly
interested in this project.
Design and build your own Bloodhound Supersonic
car workshop (above)
The girls departed at just after 2pm, in time to arrive back
at their own schools for the normal school finishing time. At this time, all the organisers, helpers and
workshop providers gathered for a delicious buffet lunch, provided by members
of the club. This was a time to meet
other people involved in the event and also to meet old friends. Hinke, who ran the Maths Amazes workshop told
me that she would be emigrating to New Zealand so would not be able to
participate next year. Maybe a club in
New Zealand would like to run a Skirting Science event!
All the girls, teachers and workshop providers were invited
to complete an evaluation about the day.
This has been very useful each year, both to see what effect we are
having on the attitude of the girls to careers in science, engineering and
mathematics and also in improving the event for the next year. Some of the comments received:
‘It helped me find out about the different types of careers
and what is involved in them.’
‘Being
able to see what people do for their jobs was good because it gave me some
ideas for occupations that I probably wouldn’t have considered.’
‘Skirting
Science has made me enjoy science even more than I did before. It had this
affect because the practical’s we did were fun and everyone took part.’
‘Science
isn’t just for boys and can be fun.’
Skirting Science has been a real
success in so many ways, particularly as the nearly all members of the club
have been involved in the event. It has
definitely made girls think about careers that they may not have considered
before.
Ruth Thomas
SI Weston-super-Mare, UK
Overall winner, Best Practice 2010-2011