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Asked by anon-217223 to Savannah, Philippe, Lucy, Joanna, Harrison, Edoardo on 13 Jun 2019.
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Savannah Clawson answered on 13 Jun 2019:
I think that science is often given a bad name in society – it is often seen as boring and scientists can be thought of as strange people! I think it is so important to show young people that this is not the case because the world is so desperate for scientists, especially with issues like global warming facing the younger generation. In terms of what can be done, outreach activities like this are a great way of showing that scientists do exciting work but that they are also normal people like you! I think representation in science is super important as a lot of people think science is just full of old white men in lab coats with crazy hair. Although you might get your odd mad-scientist kind of guy, this is definitely not the norm! It is important to show to young people that you can be a scientist no matter who you are or what your background is – all you need is a passion to learn more about the world around you!
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Joanna Huang answered on 13 Jun 2019:
Well, for starters, events like this are great 🙂 I think it’s fantastic that so many young students like yourselves are partaking in these outreach science events, and asking so many fantastic questions
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Harrison Prosper answered on 14 Jun 2019: last edited 14 Jun 2019 2:47 am
What I do is to talk science with young people at every opportunity that arises. This is why I signed up for Ask A Scientist. I want to convey my own excitement about science, without in any way minimizing how hard it is and how long it takes before you can make a novel contribution. One often finds science described as “science is fun”. Science is hard, but can be fun, but it is mostly just hard! But, when the light bulb in your head goes off, or you discover something perhaps that no one else has found, it is an absolutely thrilling experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have had several such experiences. I joke with my colleagues and friends and say, I just want one more experience like that then I’ll call it quits!
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Lucy Budge answered on 14 Jun 2019:
This is a really great question!
I do many events each year with my research group where we go and talk to students about the research we do. I think it’s really important for students to get the chance to actually talk to scientists and engage with them, otherwise science can be seen as very distant from real life. This event is perfect for this because you all get a chance to talk to us in a very relaxed way!
I think this is important because there are so many stereotypes around science: that it’s only for super intelligent or geeky/nerdy people. I don’t agree with either of these, or the idea that scientists are only good at science and aren’t good at talking to people!
Scientists are just people! From all sorts of backgrounds and with all sorts of interests. Many are really sporty, for example. So we try and emphasise this diversity whenever we can, and we make all our activities as fun as possible too!
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Philippe Gambron answered on 14 Jun 2019:
I think that it’s important to show that science is not boring or daunting and can in fact be really fun. When I was at school, I really did not like the sciences because they were taught as a bunch of rules that had to be studied by heart and followed without really understand them. But, in reality, science is not about following obscure rules. It is intuitive. You can really feel it with your guts even recreate the whole thing and, in the end, doing science becomes a creative process and something like playing. Science also enables you to understand lots of things, and, ironically, to have even more questions than before.
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Edoardo Vescovi answered on 14 Jun 2019: last edited 14 Jun 2019 6:39 pm
It’s important to debunk stereotypes. One can be the scientists’ language being intentionally incomprehensible. On one side, it must be accessible in outreach like this. On the other, it must be technical to carry some meaning when spoken among scientists.
Another problem is the view of scientists as their mad cartoonish version. They have office jobs, work in labs and have ordinary lives.
Also, science is not an erratic game of shooting in the dark. It sets and achieve goals. Building larger and larger accelerators, like in CERN, has the goal of questioning nature more precisely and confirm or correct our view on the microscopic world. In doing this and other, science drives technological progress and has turned prehistory into our modern time.
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