SMASHfestUK 2017: SuperVolcanoes - a free festival of science, engineering, technology, music, comedy, and arts, with something for all ages.

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SMASHfestUK (www.SMASHfestUK.com) is a new science festival that uses culture and entertainment as a driver of STEM engagement for young people in London, with a focus on engaging the 'hard to reach' audiences, widening participation and increasing diversity. It was successfully piloted over 1 week during February 2015 in South London and was awarded a small PE grant in 2016. This was used for two purposes: to build a "DIY" planetarium which became London's 2nd planetarium for the week of the festival and was visited by over 1000 young people, and also to support the SMASHfestUK "young science explainers" programme recruiting and training young people (16-18) in astronomy and public engagement In 2015 (asteroid) and 2016 (Solar Storm) we tested a new approach to the design and user experience of a science festival, and to see whether this novel approach would succeed in engaging audiences considered "hard to reach." Having run SMASHfestUK in 2015 and 2016, our evaluation shows that the approach did succeed on many levels. In 2017 we are returning with a full festival and an improved outreach programme to build on this success, develop the strands of the approach which work, build our relationship with the community and working on new strategies to extend our youth audience reach. SMASHfestUK 2015 and 16 successfully reached its targets in its pilot, with one of the key factors being able to keep all events free to the participants so that there was no monetary barrier to attendance. Another key factor was to take SMASHfestUK into community spaces, which we felt would be more accessible to those harder to reach audiences. We wish to build on both of these fronts. Part of this was the realisation that although cost was a barrier there were others more pertinent barriers for hard to reach audiences. These include the buildings themselves and the perception that the festival was 'not for them'. The two distinct areas of the project for which we are asking for support for the event in 2017 relate to extending our audience reach by removing some of the barriers we identified in 2015 and 2016, adding value in the quality of the programme we can offer and by enabling SMASHfestUK to work with more young people. Part of this work includes training young adults to work with and enthuse younger children by leading some of the events and performances in the festival under the auspices of our young science explainers programme, piloted in 2016 with STFC funding.Funding for this project from STFC will allow us to extend the YSE programme piloted in 2016 to recruit more young people and visit more schools as part of our outreach and training programme. It will also allow us to create and produce a record-breaking "Cryovolcano" event and related interactive activities which will introduce festival attendees to the work of the STFC and astronomical researchers in researching these phenomena.The impact of SMASHfestUK will bring science and technology to new audiences in South East London and radiating from its main base in the community of Deptford. This should extend to the 'hard to reach' young people of Lewisham and Greenwich. It aims to engage these young people in science through an innovative festival and a dynamic engagement programme and approach. The festival will build social, cultural and scientific capital by creating connections across the community between scientists and artists, scientists and young people, young people and cultural resources, institutions and ideas. This funding will also support our strategy (also supported by the Wellcome Trust, The Arts Council and NCPPE) to begin to roll out the SMASHfestUK concept in other similarly underserved and "hard to reach: audiences in other places throughout the UK.