public engagement – Lightsources.org

Synchrotron science through board games!

2022/07/012022/07/21

Learning how to communicate your science is an essential part of any scientist’s career. Whether for an interview, a presentation or for sharing your latest research with family and friends, there are many routes to explore. However, have you ever considered a board game…?

It is definitely an unusual form of public engagement, but it is one that has been an incredibly rewarding experience for us all. The ‘we’ here is Mark Basham, Claire Murray (both from Diamond Light Source) and Matthew Dunstan (University of Cambridge), who had never worked together before this project. However, we quickly became good friends and collaborators in the process of creating our board game to engage teenagers in the life of a scientist and in STEM careers. The game is based on the floor plan of Diamond Light Source and every experiment is one that has been carried out there. We playtested our game with lots of family and friends before taking it to our target audience – teenagers between 12-18 who may not be aware of the full variety of careers in STEM available to them. We learned so much that we have actually just published a paper sharing the design process, evaluation and results and our approach to inclusive design. Check out the Diamond website to learn more about it!

Spare 10 minutes to make science leap forward

2019/02/152019/02/19

Today sees the launch of an innovative Citizen Science Project by Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility. The project uses a crowdsourcing model to call on people of all ages around the world to help speed up the analysis of the terabytes of data that Diamond generates every day. The first task set for citizen scientists is to spend a few minutes looking at a series of screens to identify viruses. More tasks will be set for other targets over the next three years. This will help train Artificial Intelligence systems (AI) and develop new ways of segmenting data, with the aim to automate the data segmentation processes. Doing this will dramatically speed up scientists’ ability to understand their research data in a matter of days rather than the current weeks, allowing for a faster path to understanding disease structures, and perhaps speeding up pathways to drug development.
Unveiled at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, The Diamond “Science Scribbler – Virus Project”, is the first of its kind that members of the public can help with in such a big way. It is funded by the world’s biggest biomedical charity, the Wellcome Trust and being developed in collaboration with Zooniverse, the renowned citizen science web platform.

Why Engineering? A work experience view

2018/07/062018/07/18

Kiishi and Hannah have spent five days within the Diamond Communications team as part of their work experience week. They’ve shared their experience, with a special focus on engineering, in this article.

2018 is the Year of Engineering. A national campaign to celebrate the world and wonder of engineering and increase awareness and understanding of what engineers do among young people. Engineering is a vital part of everyday life, from coffee machines and smartphones, to Mars rovers and artificial intelligence.
Some ways in which Diamond encourages young people to get into engineering include through open days; the facility hosts five every year as well as workshops for prospective students who are interested in the field of science and engineering. Recently Diamond ran Project M which involved collecting 1000 samples of calcium carbonate from 100 schools across the country. These samples were analysed by Diamond and the results were sent back to the schools to process. They were interested in finding out how different additives affect the forms of calcium carbonate produced. This project was the first ‘citizen science’ project at Diamond and allowed schools to really get involved in a genuine scientific experiment. This is just one example of how Diamond is very much community based and strives to involve local residents and really get people excited about engineering.

Education program catalyzes identity in science

2017/12/132018/01/18

An exciting new initiative achieves multiple broader impact objectives and makes our lab more inviting to visitors and partners

As part of a new integrated approach to outreach, education, and public engagement, CHESS has an exciting new initiative that achieves multiple broader impact objectives while simultaneously making our lab more inviting to visitors and partners.

This past semester an enthusiastic team of graduate students ignited public interest in accelerators and light sources by creating and presenting interactive exhibits that demystify synchrotron science.

Targeting accelerator-relevant ideas that sometimes challenge interpretation, they collaborated with staff experimenting, prototyping, designing, and finally constructing devices that harness and help elucidate the physics of: electric and magnetic fields, accelerated charged particles, ionized gases, light spectra, polarization, diffraction, and electromagnetic waves. These creations will soon become integral to the visitor experience at our lab—offering non-scientists an illuminating gateway into an otherwise esoteric field.

>Read more on the CHESS website