Science and you(th) enables school classes to step into a dialogue session with scientists and politicians about the future.
This activity is broken up into a number of stages. The first is a workshop where schools pupils are asked to identify questions, hopes and concerns they have towards science and technological change, focusing on a particular topic.
After this initial session, these comments are collected and you search for researchers who could best address these issues. At a later date, the second part of this activity takes place, where the pupils are then introduced to scientists and experts who work on those topics. Scientists then listen to the questions and concerns of young people and give their feedback. The dialogue can be further expanded to include young politicians, who are invited to the sessions as well and are able to either ask questions to the experts or provide their insights.
It is especially interesting to have different school classes attend these sorts of events, e.g. one from a city and one from a rural area. This allows for a greater perspective of how these topics are viewed by different demographics.
You can do it with all those groups, but we did it with professionals from different fields like public engagement or the cultural and creative sector.
The participation of young people in the social debate on current scientific research and technological developments is promoted. Young people raise their concerns and have their questions on particular topics and have these concerns addressed in a serious forum.
- Get in contact with local schools and see if any of their classes would be interested in participating. Ideally, you would include school classes from different areas (in urban and rural regions)
- Organise a venue where these workshops could take place. This could be at one of the participating schools. These workshops should allow time for pupils to be introduced to a topic and allow time for participants to think about and share their insights on current scientific and technological topics.
- Collect the questions, hopes and concerns of the pupils toward those topics.
- Select the most urgent issues of the pupils for the dialogue sessions at the Science and you(th) Event
- Search for appropriate scientists, experts and politicians for the dialogue sessions.
- Organize an event where pupils, experts and politicians meet
- The dialogue sessions need experienced presenters. Choose methods that create a fun and open atmosphere!
Foundation Science et Cité, Switzerland
It could be possible to combine these two sessions into a single activity if you specify the initial discussion with the pupils to a certain topic, then specialists could be invited in advance to then join the pupils to address the questions and comments that came upon the topic that is within their area of expertise.