We are pleased to announce the first STEM Working Group meeting of the academic year. The session will focus on supporting year 12 students with two Lightning Talks.

Dr Katrine Solvaag will talk about a five-day August Bioscience Work Experience Week for Year 12 students hosted by the Outreach & Widening Participation team and Bioscience academics from the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Kent. The purpose of this week is to provide students with hands-on lab experience, a chance to learn about applying to university and discover what it is like to study a bioscience subject in higher education. Students get to carry out a small research project in the labs, write up a research poster, keep a lab notebook, and attend lectures – all while meeting likeminded individuals from across the county.

One of our ambassadors recently wrote a news story about this year’s programme, if you are interested to find out about the lab work the students get to carry out please click on the link below:

https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/belonging/37079/bioscience-week-brings-aspiring-scientists-to-kent-labs

Dr Antonio Portas will talk about a STEM Experience Week targeting Year 12 Students from local schools during February half term. The week has been run by NESTEM since 2018 and aims to provide students with an authentic taster of what it is like to study STEM subjects at university. The week involves a series of activities, from attendance to lectures to interviews with researchers. NUSTEM has aligned the evaluation of this project with the NERUPI framework and the evaluation has revealed a statistically significant increase of positive differences in students’ opinions across several statements for example “People Like Me go to University” or “ I feel confident at my ability to study at University”.

This session will run from 14:00 - 15:30.

Speaker Biographies

Dr Katrine Solvaag is a STEM Outreach Officer at the University of Kent. She is one of many who have come to consider the University of Kent their home away from home, having completed a BA, MA and PhD here. After completing her doctorate in literature and creative writing, she went on to join the outreach department where she could continue to collaborate with local schools to provide students with unique opportunities, a passion she discovered while working as a student ambassador. By chance, she went on to become one of the university’s STEM Outreach Officers, partnering up with academics and research scientists to develop and deliver science content appropriate for KS3, KS4 and KS5 audiences. Every day has become a school day, where she gets to learn about the fascinating research taking place at the university and help share those insights with a young audience.

Dr Antonio Portas, is an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University and works as an outreach specialist with NUSTEM. Antonio oversees NUSTEM secondary partner schools initiatives, with an emphasis on careers contextualisation in the classroom and curriculum-led outreach activities. His role is part-funded by the Ogden Trust, which aims to support physics and science teachers to enthuse students about physics. Prior to this appointment Antonio worked for the widening participation team at Leeds Beckett University, where he also taught applied pedagogy to Physics PGCE teacher trainees. Other roles have included Science Outreach Facilitator at the University of Reading (part funded by SEPnet), and work for the Bradford Robotic Telescope, delivering science workshops for pupils and teachers around the usage of robotic telescopes in the classroom. Antonio was awarded his PhD in Astrophysics in 2010 by University of Hertfordshire. His passion for science communication began when he was a presenter of live planetarium shows in his home town of Oporto.