Junior Cafe Scientifique comes to a school near you!
Charlotte Thorley
Junior Cafe Scientifique brings a new opportunity for young people to discuss frontier science with real researchers.
"The Junior Cafe Scientifique initiative is based on the model of Cafe Scientifique - evening meetings which take place in bars, cafes, theatres and pubs but always outside the academic environment, where scientists and the public meet on equal terms."
This is the grounding on which Junior Cafe Scientifique is based, and it is a good one. Cafe Scientifique has proved popular across the country, bringing together the public and scientists. The new initiative for young people will build on this and more.
The idea is that the students run the cafe themselves; they choose the topics, make the bookings, attract the audience. They are helped through the set up by the project organiser, Rowan Hoban, and eventually can take over for themselves with the support of staff from their school.
The format is deliberately simple: A speaker is asked to introduce their topic in a 10 minute talk, without the aid of slides and computers. Then the audience is invited to discuss and debate the topic.
The Junior Cafe Scientifique project aims "to help young people gain the tools and the confidence to discuss scientific issues as they might discuss political and cultural issues, as a means to bring scientific research and its implications more firmly into their world view".
If you are interested in starting your own Junior Cafe, or in finding out more about it, please check out the link below, or contact Charlotte at SETPOINT Greater Manchester on 0161 295 6373.
Submitted by: Charlotte Thorley, 15 September 2005
