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From the outset, I was feeling confident about Activity 2- I was rather smug that we had managed to obtain Vicky as our mentor - the subject of her research was Space, a topic that resonates well with the public, partly thanks to the Cox Effect [15]. I was also very satisfied with my group; Leigh, George and I all got on extremely well, and I was looking forward to planning the activity. However, after a few team meetings, the amount of progress we were making in planning the activity was worrying me. My previous experiences with university group work had always been with acquaintances rather than friends, and I was aware that some studies suggest group work with friends can be less productive[16]. I was also anxious about whether choosing Vicky’s research might have been the wrong decision, as we were really struggling to come up with space-related activities for our stall. In retrospect, these initial feelings of anxiety may have just been post decision dissonance[17]. As time drew closer to the ideas pitch, we became much more effective as a team- I noticed we were all falling into specific roles, and I felt comfortable in my position as the realist and pragmatist of the group. The pitch was an overall success, and other than a few critiques, most people liked our ideas. This made clear to me my initial doubts were clearly unplaced, and in future I should learn to stick with decisions and have confidence in them.
After my experience from Activity 1, I was feeling more confident about the enthusiasm of children towards interactive science. However, when we arrived on the day, I was immediately worried by our unfortunate positioning in the hall. Our stall was placed at the edge- inbetween a VR stall, a stall where you could examine real-life exotic insects, and a stall with its own Formula-1 car. I was concerned that the wow-factor of these stalls could have a negative knock-on effect to the popularity of our stall. This concern disappeared completely within 30 minutes, and we were overwhelmed with children.
Throughout the day I found myself genuinely having fun running the stall, it was interesting to see the kind of thought processes the children went through when trying to complete activities 2 & 3- often discussing with friends, or trying to remember content learnt at school. I also enjoyed the opportunity to discuss Space with the children. I was particularly pleased by the suitable looks of amazement on their faces when I explained to them the concept of a light-year, and that our closest star was over 4 light-years away. I was also encouraged to see that our stall was attracting many female pupils as well as male, which supports the opinion that I'd formed after wider reading about the gender differences within Physics[18]: they are a result of cultural pressures and stereotypes rather than any difference in inherent interest or ability.
how could we compete with giant millipedes?
Whilst I didn’t approach this activity with the same scepticism as Activity 1, I felt that I may have initially underestimated how curious children of this age could be, and the day reminded me that the whole point of events like Bath Taps is to encourage this natural curiosity that is present in most children. Looking back on the activity, I was immensely pleased with it, and during the evaluation we all thought it had been very successful. I think that I learnt the most during the planning stages of the activity, which taught me to worry less when working with friends, and to be more confident in decisions that I make- as an individual or a group.
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