Comment & Analysis
The science fair is mushrooming out across the UK. Let's hope it translates into more youngsters taking up engineering
The Big Bang produced an aftershock and its universe continues to expand. Hot on the heels of the main event at Excel, this week saw the staging of its smaller 'regional' cousin, also in the capital, held at Westminster Kingsway College's Kings Cross campus.
A modern five-storey complex on the Gray's Inn Road, Westminster Kingsway College has a reputation for delivering high quality vocational training to 16-19 year olds. Kim Caplin, college vice principal, has steered it through participation in three local Big Bangs including the debut year, 2009 (the college took in hiatus from delivering the regional event in 2010, when that job went to The Science Museum). The college will soon bid to stage the event for another two years, Caplin tells PE.
Of the first event four years ago, she admits: "We were surprised by how big it was." That show attracted more than 1,000 visitors. This year, the team at the college was expecting 3,000 and the event has been expanded to take place over two days. As an initiative, staging it involves everyone within the college - not just the students studying STEM. It's good PR for the school, Caplin says. "We get all these young people coming in who might otherwise never come to an FE college," she says.
Caplin acknowledges that vocational training can be looked down on. "It's sometimes seen as an also-ran. But coming here can change that: it's a lovely, inspirational building."
Since the Big Bang rotates between venues and has been held in Birmingham and Manchester as well as London, the regional events provide an important alternative for schoolchildren unable to attend the main event.
For example, schools from Kent and Sussex that missed the Excel event had the chance to be involved at Kingsway instead. It's hoped that this expansion of the science fair will reach out to ever greater numbers of children as it mushrooms out across the country.
It remains to be seen whether what is undeniably an inspirational event translates into greatly increased numbers of youngsters taking apprenticeships and degrees in STEM subjects.
Four years in, and with the show expanding, we won't have to wait too long to find out.