Glasgow Science Festival in Action 2025
GSF in Action 2025: Public Engagement & Events Training
Join Dr Deborah McNeill, Director of the Glasgow Science Festival (GSF) and Dr Ella Gilchrist, GSF Comms & Engagement Coordinator, for an exciting opportunity to collaborate, create and deliver highly engaging STEM activities for young people. PGR students from the Colleges of Science & Engineering (CoSE) and Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences (MVLS) are invited to join our extended training scheme, taking place online and in-person throughout spring and summer 2025.
There will be a combination of taught sessions and small group work, focusing on content development. Followed by a process of review and refinement. You will then deliver your groups activities at an event during GSF 2025, which runs from the 5th to 15th June.
Throughout the course you will develop useful skills such as:
- Effective group working
- Understanding your audience
- Development and delivery of high-quality STEM engagement content
- Creation of supporting materials
- Project and budget planning
The programme is a series of taught components and self-led group work. Some sessions are timetabled and you will schedule others to suit your group. Due to the nature of the training, learning is progressive and builds directly on previous sessions. As such- Please only apply if you can attend all sessions on the 17th and 18th March (sessions 1-6) and the delivery session on the 11th or 12th June.
|
Date |
Session |
Time |
Type |
Session Title |
|
Wed 17th March |
1 |
10.00-10.45 |
Class- In person, ARC |
Intro to PE |
|
|
2 |
11.00-12.00 |
Class- In person, ARC |
Creating tabletop activities |
|
|
3 |
13:00-15:30 |
Class- In person, ARC |
Activity development |
|
4 |
15.30-16.00 |
Class- In person, ARC |
Team roles |
|
|
Tues 18th March |
5 |
10.00-10.30 |
Class- online Teams |
Creating tabletop activities- part 2 |
|
|
6 |
10.45-16.00 |
Class- online Teams |
Activity development- part 2 & Next steps |
|
Mon 31st March or Tues 1st April |
7 |
60mins per group |
Group- online Teams |
Progress review with GSF Team |
|
Tues 22nd or Wed 23rd April |
8 |
90mins per group |
Group- in person, GSF office |
Play Session |
|
Wed 7th or Thurs 8th May |
9 |
TBC with GSF team |
Group- in person, GSF office |
Prep kit box |
|
Mon 12th May |
10 |
10.00-12.00 |
Class- In person, ARC |
Practice delivery session |
|
Wed 11th or Turs 12th June |
11 |
10.00-16.00 |
Class- In person, Botanics |
Delivery at Glasgow Science Festival |
Programme Info
Sessions 1-6: Days 1 & 2 are compulsory sessions that ALL participants must attend. Day 1 is delivered in person at the ARC. Day 2 is delivered online (MS Teams). You will learn how to develop an effective engagement activity, be allocated a group and theme then begin development of your activities.
After session 6: You will work in your small groups and will require some working outside the timetabled sessions, timings and workloads tbc within your groups.
Session 7: Progress review with the GSF Team to review material submitted following deadline 1.
Session 8: Play session in-person at the University of Glasgow. Chance to test your activities and get feedback.
Session 9: Prepare your materials with the GSF Team ready for delivery.
Session 10: Practice and feedback session in-person at the ARC. Groups will present final activities to each other.
Session 11: Delivery of your activity at the festival. As part of your application, you will be asked to select one of the optional delivery days during GSF in June. Please note your availability will be used to determine your group and cannot be changed.
Joining Info
Location: Online- Microsoft Teams and in-person at the ARC
Participants: This project is funded by the University of Glasgow CoSE & MVLS Graduate schools, with space for 16 CoSE and 16 MVLS PGR students. With thanks to our funders for their ongoing support.
Application deadline: Wed 19th Feb, 5pm
Application response: We will respond by Wednesday 26th Feb to confirm participation on the course.
GSF in Action Application Form 2025
GSF in Action 2025 Info & Timetable - download a copy of the course info shared above