A love of the media and a passion for science are driving more and more of the region’s students to sign-up to join the emda-funded STEM Student Journalists project as novice reporters. From blogs to Twitter, Facebook to YouTube, the region’s 11 – 22 year olds are being encouraged to tell everyone that science is cool, relevant to everyday life and can lead to a great career.
Over 40 pupils will gather at The University of Lincoln to hone their reporter skills at the third regional STEM Student Journalist Media Workshop on Thursday 7th May 2009. They will join the growing army of over 90 young writers and film-makers who have been recruited and trained by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda)-funded STEM Partnership PR campaign to boost the coverage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics news stories.
Hosted by The University of Lincoln Media, Humanities and Technology Faculty, the two-hour interactive workshop will be led by a Video Journalist and a PR expert covering need-to-know facts about video journalism, and basic interview techniques. Previous workshops have been held at the National Space Centre in Leicester and at BioCity Nottingham, inspiring a stream of students to talk and write about projects or events which have captured their imagination. Selected reports are posted on http://www.emstempartnership.org.uk/ and the best reports are sent to the local press. Later this year, STEM Student Journalists can enter their work for a series of special awards.
“Being involved in the STEM Student Journalist Project has been great for the school,” said Robert Wilson, head of science at Trinity School, Nottingham. “The project has encouraged our students to discover more about STEM subjects in an interesting way, whilst using their creative reporting skills to communicate with all types of audiences.”
Students from Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire have already signed up to attend the event which is part of the wider emda-funded programme to encourage the take-up of careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The emda programme ties in with the latest government ad campaign “see where they can take you” linked to http://www.scienceandmaths.net/ , which seeks to attract pupils to careers as diverse as cosmetics, sound engineering, weather forecasting and marine biology.
Speaking of the STEM Student Journalists’ work, emda’s Skills and Communities Director Andrew Morgan said: “This project is a great way of encouraging the region’s young people to see science, technology, engineering and maths as interesting subjects by tapping into their interest in the media. We’ve already seen some exciting reports coming from those students enrolled on the scheme, and hope this next event will stimulate further involvement. It’s important that we keep this momentum going to ensure the region has a stock of qualified scientists to maintain a flourishing region in the future.”