Those magnificent chemists and their flying machines
A group of chemists and RSC members held an outreach event at Imperial War Museum Duxford – showing members of the public the role played by chemistry in fighting the Battle of Britain.
By Geoff Coxon
Our "those magnificent chemists and their flying machines" outreach project funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry Outreach Fund aimed to engage and inform the public about the importance of chemistry within the aviation sector. We decided to do this because, in our experience with STEM outreach in the aviation space, engineering and technology are heavily represented, whereas chemistry is not!
The project was due to run between September 2019 and May 2020 at IWM Duxford, an absolutely wonderful aviation museum with real flying, to contextualise the experience of our outreach. The first of two events took place at their Battle of Britain airshow in September 2019. Here we were able to reach out to 500 members of the public showing how chemistry was important in the battle of Britain. Ranging from how pilots manipulate the molecules of air to materials that were made to build the aircraft, we were able to blend the movie The Battle of Britain to members of the public aged between 3 years and 80 years of age. Real flying displays and experiments with bubbles and smoke flares enabled the public to get a fun experience of chemistry. We were also able to engage 13 chemists and RSC members too, to help them flex their public engagement muscles.
Of course, our May 2020 event was postponed due to COVID, and we were able to reschedule this thanks to the RSC – who were extremely respectful and supportive throughout. We were able to change our plans slightly and deploy this outreach program alongside the IWM Duxford "forces of flight" family experience during the last weekend of February 2022, where we engaged 300 members of the public in the same way.
During the project we were able to capture responses from 50 members of the public with our questionnaires, all of them enjoying the events and seeing how important chemistry was within aviation. Notable responses included "I never knew how much chemistry was involved with aeroplanes," and "wow…only 0.04% of the air is from carbon dioxide. I thought it was more than that!" Of course, we also managed to inspire some children to pick chemistry as one of their school subject choices, which is always a great feeling!
The Outreach Fund made it possible by supporting the consumables, expenses and consultancy as well as providing a beacon to attract chemists to gain skills in the art of outreach and meet the public. It also served to lay the foundation for future endeavours with IWM Duxford.
From the project we have been able to build a strong STEM engagement relationship with IWM Duxford and were able to build online resources with them to help classrooms during the pandemic, in addition to seeding the possibility of future themed events at the museum all around chemistry and its application and use in aviation.
We would like to thank the staff and volunteers at IWM Duxford, our fantastic chemistry volunteers and of course, the RSC, for funding this fantastic project.
Apply to our Outreach Fund
Our Outreach Fund is open for applications throughout 2022 for grants of up to £10,000!
Through the Fund we enable members, individuals and organisation to run chemistry-based engagement activities for families, members of the public and youth audiences in and out of schools. We are especially interested in supporting projects which aim to engage under-represented audiences in their activities as well as projects themed around sustainability.
Look at recent examples of funded projects, and apply to the fund now.
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