Lighting it Up: The Physics of Imaging Space

'Lighting it Up: The Physics of Imaging Space' is a multiple-part, multiple intervention outreach and public engagement programme centred around the physics of capturing accurate images in space. Lighting it Up will take children on an exploration of space and the science behind what we see and how we see it using recognisable technology such as mobile phones and cameras. This programme is novel, being delivered remotely to children at Key Stage 3 throughout the United Kingdom using blended learning, including a high-quality film, remote live online sessions and teacher-led classroom activities. Such an approach enables us to reach a large audience nationally with high-quality resources, whilst upskilling teachers and engaging young people with cutting-edge research.

With the Lighting it Up project, we aim to engage and support the aspirations of a new generation of scientists to study physics post-16 by promoting the use of the school physics curriculum within cutting-edge science research, providing real-world applications for school science. We will use examples of physics, astronomy and space STFC research, and their uses in the exploration of space and the objects it contains, to convey the excitement of space missions. We also aim to 'bring it down to Earth' by showing children how the advanced technologies that are used to capture space images have their origins in everyday objects we use on Earth, such as smartphone cameras. We aim to further support and engage the children by showing them that innovation is exciting, allowing scientists to reach beyond the Earth's atmosphere and image parts of the Universe that are otherwise completely inaccessible to humans. Children will see how the science they learn about in school allows scientists to explore space and all of its amazing components in picture perfect detail.

We will use the Lighting it Up film, online sessions and resource packs to showcase a range of our STFC researchers at different career levels. This not only allows us to provide training for our scientists in STEM outreach and public engagement, but also give them opportunities to practice their engagement skills, and allow us to highlight to children the diversity of scientists involved in research. With the support of industry partner Teledyne-e2v, we will also showcase careers in physics outside of academic research, showing different routes into a STEM career.

We aim to improve young people's confidence in physics and its practical applications by providing their teachers with resource packs of activities to lead in the classroom. These activities will support children to think more freely about science concepts and their use in the wider world. Through this, we further hope to raise student attainment and widen their career aspirations by helping them to see that physics is dynamic, relevant and for them.

We also aim to improve teacher confidence in teaching physics by deepening their subject knowledge and providing them with well-designed and related classroom practical activities to run independently in school. Educator 'Continuing Professional Development' (CPD) training developed alongside the delivered content will support educators in presenting the science activities to students even if they are non-specialist science teachers. By linking our resources to the curriculum content whilst providing examples of current world-leading research, teachers will be able to seamlessly incorporate new knowledge into their teaching, whilst providing resources they can reuse in the future.

The film will be available on YouTube as a standalone resource with links to the programme of school outreach activities in the description. The film will also be hosted on the SPS website under a new page dedicated to the project. Here we will provide more information about the programme, including contact information for how schools can sign up to be involved. We will also include downloads with details of some of the school practical activities related to the science of the film that can be undertaken at home.

We will provide the film and resource packs, plus CPD materials, to the schools with which we work free of charge. We will evaluate the impact of the programme on these schools. However, details about the activities will be available to the public, and any other schools, on our website for them to engage with the materials as they wish, but we will not provide the resources for free as that is not within the budget of this programme. Most of the materials for the activities are relatively low budget and freely available making them accessible to a wide range of people.

Once the pilot study is complete, we will produce an evaluation report about the project which will be made available on the SPS website. We will share information about the project and best practice with colleagues in the School of Physical Sciences and the wider STEM faculty via School meetings, the seminar series and 'STEM Engagement Team Leads' meetings. It is hoped that sharing our success internally will allow us to attract more researchers to get involved with future parts of the programme focussing on different research areas. We will share a report about the project with our partner school network so they can decide whether they would like to get involved with future parts of the programme, particularly if they were unable to take part in the pilot study. In our previous work, we have found that the schools we work with are keen to share news of the project with their partner schools.

Our outreach team are in a good position to disseminate the results of this project to all interested parties at public engagement practitioner level, being members of SEPnet and The Ogden Trust. The evaluation report will be circulated to these groups and they will allow space for us to share our findings in meetings, as well as through the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE). We would also look to present the findings at the most suitable Physics in Higher Education Conference and Public Engagement conferences to engage the wider public engagement community, as well as submitting our evaluation work to a peer-reviewed journal.