Science Uncovered is part of European Researchers’ Night, and is a free annual festival of science held at various institutions across the UK giving the public the opportunity to discover rare items from the Museum collections, meet experts and take part in interactive science stations, debates and behind-the-scenes tours. (more…)
I was able to attend the Bristol Festival of Nature thanks to a grant from the British Ecological Society. I was fortunate to be the first beneficiary of the Regional Funding Scheme which provides support for researchers to undertake public engagement activities.
The Bristol Festival of Nature is the UK’s largest celebration of the natural world with two days of free interactive activities and entertainment across Bristol’s Harbourside. I had a stall in the Green Forum tent in Millenium Square and spent two days talking with the public about soil health and earthworms, with activities including handling and identifying live earthworms and a ‘count the number of earthworms in the wormery’ competition – with a prize for the winner. It was also a great opportunity promote my citizen science project Earthworm Watch, explain the survey methods and recruit citizen scientists to the project. Despite torrential rain, I spoke to 200 people over the weekend and also did my first ever radio interview for local natural history show Shepherds Way – see 22 June 2016 if you would like to listen.
I am very grateful to the British Ecological Society for making it possible to run this stall to raise awareness of the importance of earthworms and promote my project and would highly recommend ecologists interested in public engagement apply the scheme.
Last year I blogged about my first visit to the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. This year I was back – promoting my new citizen science project Earthworm Watch, which I have developed with Earthwatch and the Natural History Museum. This time the Natural History Museum occupied a whole marquee and I attended on the Saturday and Sunday by myself, which was hard work!
I brought along some live earthworms for people to hold which was particularly popular with children. It was heartening to hear more people comment that they were “cute” rather than “yuk”. I gave out leaflets and took several sheets full of email addresses to follow up with more information on Earthworm Watch so I hope it will lead to more recruitment for the project.
On Sunday I presented my new citizen science project Earthworm Watch at two Nature Live events at the Natural History Museum. (more…)
A couple of weeks ago I was asked by fellow Soil Biodiversity Group member (and termite fan) Fez to help with earthworm dissections at the Wohl Reach Out Lab where she works. (more…)
