My love for neuroscience began in sixth form, when I visited the Cambridge Festival for the first time and listened to lectures on the brain. It was a humbling full-circle feeling to be back at the festival this year, the difference being this time it was me talking to the public about the brain!
Cambridge Festival is an annual science and arts festival, with events across the city. I volunteered with Cambridge Neuroscience and CamBRAIN, two fantastic networks connecting Cambridge University students, postgraduates and staff. Our stalls were collectively advertised as ‘Build a CamBRAIN’. This was my first experience of communicating science to the public!
"Getting others excited about science and the brain definitely reignited my excitement too"
I worked on the ‘Make your own neuron’ stall, meaning I didn’t just educate through speaking but in a more interactive way through craft activities. Kids and adults learnt that neurons are the cells in your brain and throughout your body responsible for controlling many functions from movement to senses, and memory. By modelling neurons themselves, participants learnt what neurons look like and how they work. We made cell bodies containing the genetic instructions controlling the cell from sponges and wool; connected them to pipe cleaners forming the dendrites and axon for transmitting information as electrical signals along the cell; and stuck on gems as the chemical messengers called neurotransmitters which carry information to and from neighbouring cells. Besides the learning and inspiration, on an artistic level some seriously amazing models were made and taken home, hopefully reminding the children of their fascination in days to come.
The best thing about the two days at ‘Build a CamBRAIN’ was people’s wonder when I told them facts about the brain. My favourite fact was that there are 86 billion neurons in the human brain - that’s more neurons than there are people in the world, and nearly as many stars as in the galaxy. Attendees were so surprised to hear about this complex biology within their bodies that’s needed to keep them alive and to be who they are. It was such a joy to share my passion about our most crucial, most complex and (arguably) most interesting organ: getting others excited about science and the brain definitely reignited my excitement too!
If you’re a scientist at any level, I’d definitely recommend getting involved in a public engagement project. As well as being fun, it’s a great learning experience for you and for the attendees. Here are some of my top reasons to get involved with public engagement:
Benefits to scientists
Growth in confidence in public speaking.
Reigniting your enthusiasm for science.
Increased experience talking about your research at a basic level to people who you may not normally speak to, helping your understanding of your own research and your ability to communicate it.
Learning about how large-scale scientific events are organised; for curiosity’s sake, to work out how to best give back to the public as a scientist whereby a lot of our work is public funded, and to explore alternative career opportunities in scientific events.
Networking with talented scientists and speakers on the public engagement teams.
Benefits to the public
Helping to grow and support children’s enthusiasm for learning.
Inspiring future scientists: showing children an interesting career that they might not have heard about before or thought that they could do
Building public knowledge, understanding and appreciation of science, and therefore public confidence in it.
Anything I’ve missed? Comment below!
I enjoyed engaging with the public at Cambridge Festival so much that I have been seeking out similar opportunities since. In July, I volunteered as a Science Communicator with Alzheimer’s Research UK, which took me to a shopping centre in Brighton to talk to shoppers about dementia research and care. As a part-time role alongside my PhD, I was recruited as a Science Workshop Assistant with Braintastic! Science, which has so far taken me to Thorpe Park to be let loose with 10,000 school children, all in aid of neuroscience public engagement!
Want to hear more about Lizzie’s public engagement or public engagement in general? Let us know in the comments.
This article was written by Lizzie English and edited by Ailie McWhinnie. Interested in writing for WiN UK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!
Comments