How do you want to get more young people into science?

Question: How do you want to get more young people into science?

Asked by anon-201912 to Sophia, Sarah, Meirin, George, Emily, Andy on 5 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-201667.
- George Fulton answered on 5 Mar 2019:
  
  It’s really important to keep young people engaged in science. I studied materials and this isn’t studied at school at all. I find this amazing because everything is made of something, so why don’t we learn about it! I’d personally like to increase awareness of materials science as a subject, so that more students study and enjoy it like I did. I’m going to spend the money on a table-top microscope and collection of materials taken from a real nuclear fusion reactor. The students will be able to see close up chunks of a proper nuclear reactor, hopefully this will be a really tactile and fun way to engage with students!
- Sarah O'Sullivan answered on 5 Mar 2019:
  
  I think it helps to tell young people about how many fields of science there really are beyond physics, chemistry and biology. Engineering combines aspects of everything, as does materials science. Our outreach is aimed at the general public to provide more information than what is taught in school because I feel nuclear is very overlooked as there’s so much to teach in sciences
- Sophia Pells answered on 6 Mar 2019:
  
  There are so many different areas of science that you don’t learn about in school, so I think events like this are really amazing for letting students know more about different areas of science. I think I try to go into schools in my area to give talks about what I do to students so they can get a bit of an idea about an area of nuclear physics they might not know about (I didn’t know about it til a few years ago!). I think it’s really important that students get to meet female physicists too, because a lot of people still think that physics isn’t for girls and that’s ridiculous!
- Andy Buckley answered on 7 Mar 2019:
  
  I don’t really know: everyone is different and has a different mental image of what they want to be, and the sort of thing they like doing. And different sciences can be a totally different experience, too. The one thing that unifies us is being driven by the search for truth as far as we can measure it in the real world. Lots of what we learn to do, particularly as experimenters, is to design ways to get rid of our own biases: we know our own weaknesses very well! Actually, I think everyone, not just scientists, would benefit from learning more about respecting data more than ideologies or authority figures.
- Meirin Oan Evans answered on 7 Mar 2019:
  
  I think it’s vital that young people have scientist role models with which they can connect to on a personal level, for example if they’ve met them or spoken to them online. This is why I want to bring real scientists into schools just like yours and talk about their science work. These visits would also include hands-on activities where student can get a taste of a real scientist’s job!
- Emily Lewis answered on 8 Mar 2019:
  
  I think the best way is to show people what we do and then they can decide themselves if it’s for them. For instance my laboratory runs open days where students can come and look at our experiments and talk to our scientists- we also run some hands on activities so students can have a go themselves!

Question: How do you want to get more young people into science?

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