“While ‘traditional’ outreach activities this year were not really possible, members really rose to the challenge in identifying new ways in which we could reach the broader community. I was so impressed and inspired by what folks came up with!”
Dr Julie Karel
Chair, FLEET Outreach Committee
In 2019, after a remarkable achievement in reaching over 10,000 students, FLEET voluntarily raised its outreach target from 200 students to 2000 students, 50 teachers to 75 teachers and 2000 public members to 5000 public members.
And then Covid happened …
However, despite the unique challenges that Covid imposed on face-to-face outreach, cancelling public events and banning in-class or in-lab visits, FLEET is extremely proud of our achievements in science outreach in 2020.
Almost to our own surprise, we met our voluntarily-increased schools outreach target, reaching 1665 students (83% of target) and 263 teachers (351%).
We almost met our extremely ambitious target of 20 hours spent by every FLEET member on outreach activities, after offering members a comprehensive suite of ‘virtual’ outreach activities to choose from.
We reached over 2200 members of the public (44% of target), despite the lack of public events from March onwards. In, addition, FLEET members:
- Created their own home-science experiments in lockdown
- Crafted a DIY lightboard for science outreach videos
- Quickly adapted to online delivery of the John Monash Science School (JMSS) Year 10 FLEET science unit
- Designed a new system for virtual in-class outreach
- Fine-tuned skills for science outreach and communication, including Blender animation, Wikipedia editing, and perfecting the science pitch
- Pitched to 16 new industry contacts as part of Ascend program
- Arranged virtual lab tours for students to ‘visit’ Swinburne University of Technology, UNSW and Monash University.
—this is an extract from the 2020 FLEET annual report [read the full report online]