British Science Association AS/A-level Science Journalism competition 2017

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The British science association aim to position science at the heart of our society, providing an opportunity for people to explore, investigate, enjoy, discuss and challenge science and its societal implications. Our journalism competition will offer students from a range of schools across Greater Manchester the opportunity to learn about cutting edge research directly from academics working in a variety of academic fields. Alongside engaging with active researchers, students will also be introduced to the challenging task of science writing and will learn how to balance the requirement for engaging and understandable content with the equally important task of correctly reporting scientific content. We hope that engaging with science in this manner will give students the opportunity to look beyond science as an abstract classroom discipline and to appreciate and recognize typical errors which arise when preparing academic content for the mainstream media. In the pilot competition we ran early in 2016 we engaged with 30 students from 9 different schools across Greater Manchester. The schools involved in this pilot competition ranged from grammar schools to academies - meaning we interacted with students from a range of backgrounds. The majority of these schools have already expressed a desire to participate in this contest again in 2017. We feel that this is an innovative and engaging way of providing students with the opportunity to learn and apply science in new, unusual and exciting ways. Indeed, the feedback we received from our pilot competition indicated that this was the case. Example feedback from 2016: "it was interesting to learn about graphite directly from an expert, not from second-hand sources - Tilly Hancock 2016 competition winner""I thought the competition worked really well. The girls really enjoyed working with the academics and it gave them a real insight in to scientific research, I would definitely encourage other students to enter next year - Teacher at Oswestry School""I personally felt the students got a lot out of the competition so thank you for all your help with the organisation - teacher at Withington Girls' School""The most valuable lesson I have learned from entering the competition is that I was able to see science, that I have learned from class, utilized to solve current real life problems - student at Bury Grammar School".Overall we hope to deliver an engaging and thought provoking activity and to offer a wide range of student from a number of different backgrounds the opportunity to actively engage with cutting edge research. It is hoped that this form of active engagement will encourage more students to consider STEM careers and provide them with a better understanding of science in the media.