{"id":1138,"date":"2017-12-13T14:43:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T14:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwescicomm.wordpress.com\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2018-01-25T14:06:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T14:06:20","slug":"showtime-fun-palaces-bringing-science-and-the-arts-to-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/showtime-fun-palaces-bringing-science-and-the-arts-to-the-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Showtime! Fun Palaces \u2013 bringing science and the arts to the community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing behind the counter of Cheltenham Library one Saturday, a colleague beamed at me \u201cLet\u2019s do a Fun Palace\u201d. I had no idea what she was on about. Was she suggesting a new craze I hadn\u2019t heard of? Hmmm, she already works as a Science Communicator so was it something along those lines? My eyes darted around looking for hints \u2013 I came clean, I hadn\u2019t the foggiest idea.<\/p>\n

Turns out Fun Palaces<\/a> is an international campaign, bringing science, art, craft and tech together for one weekend a year, free for everyone and run by the community. Libraries are community hubs. In the Gloucestershire service, we offer more than books<\/a>. A Fun Palace fits in well here.<\/p>\n

Once I knew about Fun Palaces, I enthusiastically agreed to help since it tied in to the skills I had been developing on the Science Communication MSc<\/a> here at UWE. As long as it could wait until after all my assessments were handed in of course. My colleague wrote a proposal, we were given the \u2018nod\u2019, and away we went.<\/p>\n

\"Queation\"So which modules and skills from the MSc were invaluable for the event? I cannot decide. I filled this post with important aspects of the course, then realised no one wanted to read a thesis on this. Basically, I used skills learnt from every module.<\/p>\n

The experiences provided by Science in Public Spaces (\u2018We the Curious<\/a>\u2019, the Explorer Dome<\/a>, training by VOX<\/a> and a self-selected visit to one of the Science Museum \u2018Lates\u2019<\/a>) were extremely useful in highlighting how some ideas work well in some spaces and for some audiences, but not others. It also provided practical skills via the BoxEd<\/a> project. Writing Science came in handy when it came to publishing promotional tweets, producing marketing materials and writing a last-minute media release. The compulsory modules provided an understanding of audiences, whether people feel able to engage in STEM<\/a> and how you can get around those who feel they can\u2019t, and the Two Cultures debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most of you will probably be shouting at your screens \u201cGet to the Fun Palace already\u201d<\/em>. I hear you.<\/p>\n

So who did we want to attract? Did we want a theme or did we want our first ever Cheltenham Library Fun Palace<\/a> to be eclectic? We went with \u2018eclectic\u2019 as we wanted people to be enticed by at least one activity and end up staying for more. We also needed the library to run as usual, not alienating our existing customers. Cue brainstorm.<\/p>\n

We had ZERO<\/em> budget *sobs* so had to rely on people generously donating their time and activities. Two course-mates either participated or lent me their projects. Dr Samantha Organ<\/a> (being my twin sister she couldn\u2019t really refuse) ran Spaghetti Towers<\/a> on behalf of RICS<\/a> \u2013 one of the most successful activities. She does this with first year students at UWE and found the children in the library performed just as well<\/a>!<\/p>\n