Tour of the Universe

Press Release


Tour of the Universe Home		Rival Scheme to the Stars There is a scheme set to rival Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic programme. The new “Tours of the Universe” programme, launching this month, is only available to school children in the South East, where the pupils are strapping on their helmets and heading for the stars. . Dr. Maggie Aderin, the 36 year old founder of Guildford based Science Innovation, who came up with the tours concept, has worked as a professional scientist for the last 10 years and has found the experience rewarding and enjoyable. “I got the space bug when I was 6 years old, and through my work I have been able to see more of this world and the solar system than I would have ever thought possible, to date is has been a really enjoyable career, ” said Dr. Aderin. “And through this ‘Tour of the Universe’ scheme I intended to convey this passion to the children.” As well as giving children a taste of the thrills of space travel, the tours also serve another purpose. It has been has been seen for some time that fewer people are embarking on scientific and engineering careers and that in today’s scientific community, women and ethnic minorities are under represented. Dr. Maggie Aderin is female and black, fairly novel for the white, male dominated community. “I have heard many school girls say that they think that science is ‘boys stuff’ so don’t give it a try. This is rubbish; science should be available to anyone with an interest, male, female, black or white.” There are a number of schemes around trying to redress these imbalances, and the ‘Tours of the universe’ will help in the battle and encourage more young people to consider careers in science. This is to be done by showing them an enthusiastic, female, scientist from an ethnic minority working in an exciting field that she loves. Dr Aderin will conduct the tours by visiting both primary and secondary schools, equipped with a laptop and a projector and a range of presentation material developed for the initiative. To get the message across, a series of talks and demonstrations are given around the central ‘Tour of the Universe’ theme. To simulate the space travel she will use a graphics package that enables dynamic views of space and the planets and other celestial bodies to be viewed up close and personal on a large screen, from the Earth and Moon out to the Milky Way and beyond. As the passengers fly by the celestial bodies, Maggie, the tour guide will give details on the objects observed and undertake demonstrations with the audience to highlight the concepts discussed. The talks are all carefully tailored for different age groups and links have been formed with science teachers to ensure that each of the talks is reaching it target audience. “We, as scientists, have a duty to make science accessible to the public, if ideas are complex we need to work out ways to get the message across. If we fail at this, we do it to our own detriment”. The scheme is totally free to schools, as it is partially funding by PPARC, (the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council) who have a strong commitment to the public’s understanding of the science, and have funded many local projects to aid this. Dr Aderin has spent the last 6 years working on the PPARC funded bHROS instrument, a giant spectrograph, which takes star light and stretches it out into its component wavelengths, just like Newton’s prism experiment, but on a much larger scale. bHROS is now undergoing commissioning on the 8m Gemini telescope in Chile. As well as the presentations, the school visit will include an opportunity for informal discussions with the students as part of their science classes. During these periods Dr Aderin will share her experiences of being a professional scientist, from building land mine detectors to chasing kangaroos in the Australian outback by helicopter, and answer questions that the pupils may have about working as a scientist. This pilot scheme will run for one year, and during this time it is hoped that over 1000 children will be able to make the trip to the stars. If it is successful, there are plans to set up a larger scheme, using the material developed, to reach more schools in subsequent years. A television production company is also looking at the possibility of converting the talks into a series of videos that could reach an even larger audience. So if your son or daughter comes home one night and tell you that they want to be a rocket scientist, you now know why.
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