The British Science Association’s Young People’s Programme has taken on a few Youth Voice related projects – giving young people a real and meaningful say in matters that are important to them – over the past few years.

These projects have benefited from the experience of the team, gained through work undertaken with the CREST Youth Panel [1]and Alumni network [2], supported by the DfE CREST Expansion and initially developed with support from Graphic Science.

If you are interested in learning more about our Youth Voice work, or proposing a joint venture in this area, please contact us at ypp@britishscienceassociation.org [3].

Planet Under Pressure: Youth Voice

We invited young people to nominate themselves to a panel of teenagers with an interest in climate/environmental change and in community action. Twelve were selected and invited to a one-day workshop in November 2011, also attended by researchers. In the subsequent four months, the young people consulted their peers and used the findings to construct a ten minute presentation and some poster displays. They gave the presentation and showcased their posters at the Opening Ceremony of the international Planet Under Pressure conference at London’s ExCeL Centre in March 2013.
Partners:
ScienceWise ERC, Research Coucils UK (RCUK) (especially the Living With Environmental Change programme), the Royal Society and the Planet Under Pressure conference itself.
Links:
Collective memory project summary and report: http://collectivememory.britishscienceassociation.org/memory/planet-under-pressure-youth-voice/ [4]

Film of the students’ presentation at the conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A5hQwhuLGo&feature=youtu.be [5]

The panel’s posters, on the Sciencewise-ERC website: http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Project-files/PUPPoster-Template-FINAL.pdf [6]

Science Communication Conference

We held a session at the Science Communication Conference in May, looking at how others may benefit from getting young people involved in their projects.
The session provided three main case studies to show some of the different levels of engagement that could be undertaken, presenting a brief background on the projects themselves but concentrating on the logistics and implications of using young people in those projects to help encourage discussion and debate after.
Jess Wynn, a member of the CREST Youth panel and also the Planet Under Pressure team, presented the latter project from a student’s perspective. She spoke about her views of the work they undertook and the benefits of being involved. She was followed by Natasha from OPM who then provided some of the independent evaluation ‘s findings.
This may have been the first time a student has spoken to this audience before and the feedback on the session was very positive.
Partners:
Science Council (Future Morph), Queens University- Belfast, CREST Youth Panel, Office for Public Management (OPM)
Links:
More about the 2012 conference and downloadable reports: http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/science-communication-conference/2012-science-communication-conference [7]