Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Our Space Our Future (Our Space our Future: making careers in the space industry an inspiring reality for all)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-12-01 bis 2022-05-31
Our Space Our Future was established to design and run sustainable education and outreach activities for diverse audiences in five countries with the message that careers in space science are accessible to all. Using evidence-based practice to steer the creation of content and a rigorous academic evaluation, we also aimed to understand more about what interventions are most successful in terms of raising aspirations around careers in young people.
Our Space Our Future engaged over 8,000 people directly across the programme, plus an estimated 2,000+ as indirect participants via teachers, in terms of raising awareness of our key message.
The project worked directly with 4,741 students across the five partner countries with a longitudinal evaluation study to explore improved scientific literacy, interest and, confidence in space science themes. The study will also assess the impact on the career aspirations of the directly participating students. The project ran across five delivery countries – Denmark, England, Italy, Portugal, and Wales.
Through the project’s community engagement events – aiming to involve the adult influencers of the students in supporting them with STEM career confidence – a further 3,428 participants were reached.
The content developed has been captured and will remain online as a toolkit for educators to use. The learning from the academic study of effectiveness and impact will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and offered to practitioner publications to ensure our results benefit the wider education community.
Our Space Our Future engaged over 8,000 people directly across the programme, plus an estimated 2,000+ as indirect participants via teachers, in terms of raising awareness of our key message.
The project worked directly with 4,741 students across the five partner countries with a longitudinal evaluation study to explore improved scientific literacy, interest and, confidence in space science themes. The study will also assess the impact on the career aspirations of the directly participating students. The project ran across five delivery countries – Denmark, England, Italy, Portugal, and Wales.
Through the project’s community engagement events – aiming to involve the adult influencers of the students in supporting them with STEM career confidence – a further 3,428 participants were reached.
The content developed has been captured and will remain online as a toolkit for educators to use. The learning from the academic study of effectiveness and impact will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and offered to practitioner publications to ensure our results benefit the wider education community.
Project partners had been selected due to their experience in different aspects of inclusion and in raising aspirations around STEM careers. All partners shared the vision of embedding this project in good practice drawn from previous learning so an important starting point was to conduct an extensive literature review on what is already known. This provided sound evidence to demonstrate the theoretical background and rationale for Our Space Our Future and continued to inform the delivery programs and evaluations that were needed throughout the project.
The Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan outlined to consortium members the strategies and activities for the project that was put in place, and the website and extensive use of social media have been successful in promoting the project to a broader public audience.
Cardiff University as the lead beneficiary set-up a Project Handbook providing guidance for all project partners on deliverables, timelines and, financial reporting. A Project Intranet was put in place using Micorsoft Teams to allow communication between the consortium and this provided space for all documentation to be stored and worked on collaboratively. These two sources have assisted in the Project Management activities to allow consortium partners to understand their roles within the work packages and allow communication between each other to complete set tasks.
An International Stakeholder Group and local Advisory Groups from each partner country were established to help support and evaluate the delivery programs. Delivery partners worked informally with local advisory group members to ensure careers messaging was appropriate and relevant to each geographical area. The local advisory groups also helped by suggesting suitably diverse role models that showcased a wide range of space sector careers.
An Audience Development Plan and Audience Recruitment Report was written and this allowed all delivery partners to select their schools according to the criteria set out in the proposal and for schools selected to be checked against these criteria.
Each delivery partner worked with a target of 10 schools in their country working with an average of 100 students per school. Four interventions were planned with the same students to build up the familiarity of the delivery partners with the students and to build up the message that careers in the space industry can be for everyone. In each country, the focus of this message was around changing the stereotype that working in space only means being an astronaut, or exploring distant worlds. Each partner was tasked with the challenge of ensuring students encountered different ways they could contribute to the space industry, and meeting various role models from local industries along the way. There was also an emphasis on how the space industry sector helps benefit us here on earth with a focus on climate change issues and earth observation technologies.
To supplement this work, interventions were planned with the teachers and parents of those students on the project. This was based on the evidence that parents and teachers are strong influencers on the careers choices of young people. Reaching our intended audience of parents and teachers was much more challenging due to the COVID-pressures on schools and the inability to hold community and parent events. Each partner found innovative ways to connect with parents remotely by promoting the work done by the students through video and online content where possible. Teacher training CPD was harder to achieve as so many teachers at this time were not able to attend any non-essential events due to the additional pressures placed on them with school closures.
Despite our adaptations we have succeeded in evaluating the impact of the project on students and the wider public and this is outlined in full in our impact evaluation report.
The Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan outlined to consortium members the strategies and activities for the project that was put in place, and the website and extensive use of social media have been successful in promoting the project to a broader public audience.
Cardiff University as the lead beneficiary set-up a Project Handbook providing guidance for all project partners on deliverables, timelines and, financial reporting. A Project Intranet was put in place using Micorsoft Teams to allow communication between the consortium and this provided space for all documentation to be stored and worked on collaboratively. These two sources have assisted in the Project Management activities to allow consortium partners to understand their roles within the work packages and allow communication between each other to complete set tasks.
An International Stakeholder Group and local Advisory Groups from each partner country were established to help support and evaluate the delivery programs. Delivery partners worked informally with local advisory group members to ensure careers messaging was appropriate and relevant to each geographical area. The local advisory groups also helped by suggesting suitably diverse role models that showcased a wide range of space sector careers.
An Audience Development Plan and Audience Recruitment Report was written and this allowed all delivery partners to select their schools according to the criteria set out in the proposal and for schools selected to be checked against these criteria.
Each delivery partner worked with a target of 10 schools in their country working with an average of 100 students per school. Four interventions were planned with the same students to build up the familiarity of the delivery partners with the students and to build up the message that careers in the space industry can be for everyone. In each country, the focus of this message was around changing the stereotype that working in space only means being an astronaut, or exploring distant worlds. Each partner was tasked with the challenge of ensuring students encountered different ways they could contribute to the space industry, and meeting various role models from local industries along the way. There was also an emphasis on how the space industry sector helps benefit us here on earth with a focus on climate change issues and earth observation technologies.
To supplement this work, interventions were planned with the teachers and parents of those students on the project. This was based on the evidence that parents and teachers are strong influencers on the careers choices of young people. Reaching our intended audience of parents and teachers was much more challenging due to the COVID-pressures on schools and the inability to hold community and parent events. Each partner found innovative ways to connect with parents remotely by promoting the work done by the students through video and online content where possible. Teacher training CPD was harder to achieve as so many teachers at this time were not able to attend any non-essential events due to the additional pressures placed on them with school closures.
Despite our adaptations we have succeeded in evaluating the impact of the project on students and the wider public and this is outlined in full in our impact evaluation report.
The objective of Our Space Our Future was to change attitudes to careers in space science and attract a more diverse workforce for the future of the sector across Europe and beyond. By using a rigorous summary of the literature to inform our approach we felt our multiple interventions, and the use of a ‘whole school’ approach would be most effective. A secondary goal was to ensure rigorous evaluation was conducted for the project to capture learning about what works such that other actions for the future can be informed and improved. Many outreach programmes do not have the resource or skills to conduct this level of robust evaluation on a day-to-day basis, so this took the project beyond the state of the art.
We reached 4,741 students directly across the five countries with multiple interventions involving students and their influencers (parents, teachers and, community). In total 100,000+ students, teachers and wider communities encountered the resources of the project to improve their confidence, scientific literacy, interest and attitudes to STEM subjects. Additional targeted activity through social media (OSOF Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and partner social media) saw a further audience reach of over 750,000 and we built social media followings of between 800-2000 on our various OSOF channels.
The key messages delivered were around the relevance of the space industry in providing a better quality of life for all, and future benefits to our planet. Partners have attended national and international conferences, meetings, and events to present Our Space Out Future to our target audience and stakeholders. A legacy will be established from the learning of the impact evaluation and the change in practice within the delivery partners in each country.
We reached 4,741 students directly across the five countries with multiple interventions involving students and their influencers (parents, teachers and, community). In total 100,000+ students, teachers and wider communities encountered the resources of the project to improve their confidence, scientific literacy, interest and attitudes to STEM subjects. Additional targeted activity through social media (OSOF Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and partner social media) saw a further audience reach of over 750,000 and we built social media followings of between 800-2000 on our various OSOF channels.
The key messages delivered were around the relevance of the space industry in providing a better quality of life for all, and future benefits to our planet. Partners have attended national and international conferences, meetings, and events to present Our Space Out Future to our target audience and stakeholders. A legacy will be established from the learning of the impact evaluation and the change in practice within the delivery partners in each country.