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

英国科学协会旨在将科学置于我们社会的核心，为人们提供探索，调查，享受，讨论和挑战科学及其社会影响的机会。我们的新闻比赛将为来自大曼彻斯特一系列学校的学生提供直接从各种学术领域的学者那里了解前沿研究的机会。除了与活跃的研究人员接触外，学生还将被介绍给科学写作的挑战性任务，并将学习如何平衡对吸引人和可理解的内容的要求与正确报告科学内容的同等重要的任务。我们希望以这种方式参与科学将使学生有机会超越科学作为一个抽象的课堂纪律，并欣赏和认识到在为主流媒体准备学术内容时出现的典型错误。在2016年初的试点比赛中，我们与来自大曼彻斯特9所不同学校的30名学生进行了互动。参与这项试点比赛的学校从文法学校到学院都有，这意味着我们与来自各种背景的学生进行了互动。这些学校中的大多数已经表示希望在2017年再次参加这一比赛。我们认为这是一种创新和吸引人的方式，为学生提供以新的，不寻常的和令人兴奋的方式学习和应用科学的机会。事实上，我们从试点竞赛中收到的反馈表明情况确实如此。2016年的反馈示例：“直接从专家那里了解石墨很有趣，而不是从二手资料中--蒂利（汉考克）是2016年竞赛的获胜者”“我认为竞赛效果非常好。女孩们真的很喜欢和学者们一起工作，这给了她们对科学研究的真实的洞察力，我一定会鼓励其他学生进入明年-教师在奥斯韦斯特里学校”“我个人觉得学生们得到了很多的竞争，所以感谢你的所有帮助与组织-教师在威辛顿女子学校””我从参加比赛中学到的最有价值的一课是，我能够看到科学，我从课堂上学到的，用于解决当前真实的生活问题-伯里文法学校的学生”。总体而言，我们希望提供一项引人入胜且发人深省的活动，并为来自不同背景的广泛学生提供积极参与前沿研究的机会。希望这种积极参与的形式将鼓励更多的学生考虑STEM职业，并为他们提供更好地了解媒体中的科学。

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.