November 2008 | East Midland STEM Fluency Lab

+ follow up Review Lab

for Ignite! and Creative Partnerships as part of the Ignition* programme

Focused on teachers and artists and science communicators who work in schools, this first Lab was five days of intensive learning and exchanges of ideas.

This was the first of three residential Labs commissioned by Ignite! to take place 2008-2010. The Labs are part of an exciting and comprehensive programme of work called Ignition!. Funded by the East Midlands Development Agency to the tune of £1.9m, the programme aims to stop the decline in young people taking up science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) as courses of higher-level study or as careers.

After the Lab, participants are supported by the Reflect programme of co-mentoring. Over the three years, 60 teachers and 30 artists and scientists will take part in what promises to be an inspiring programme.

“It was a personal journey. We changed as individuals. I don’t think we appreciated the degree to which we would step outside our own comfort zone and by doing that, learn things. It’s changed my whole approach… This was an opportunity to have four days of being creative without worrying what it was going to give us. By doing it that way we discovered so much that we could use. It was like coming at it from the other side”. Maths teacher

Lab Director
Steve Mesure

Participants
Chrys Allen - artist
Savneesh Bains - teacher
Tracey Barton - teacher
Cathy Bereznicki - Director, PAL Labs in Learning
Harsha Chauhan - teacher
Helen Curry - teacher
Lyn Dunkley - teacher
Asif Esat - teacher
Leigh Fish - scientist
Heidi Gale - teacher
Rick Hall - Director of Programmes, Ignite!
Marion Hamshere - teacher
Alice King - teacher
Andrea Limb - teacher
Garry Monger - teacher
Kim Moor - teacher
Fiona Ord-Shrimpton - Programme Director, Ignition*
Kirsty Price - teacher
Steffie Richards - artist
Dy Shepherd - teacher
Eugene Skeef - musician
Samantha Tang - Public Awareness Scientist, School of Chemistry, Nottingham
Steven Taylor - teacher
Rich Topley - teacher
Sarah Walley - Projects Manager, Ignition*
Lisa Williams - teacher
Kate Willis - movement artist

Visitors
Cathy Brown - STEMnet
Jennifer Delaney - STEM Partnership Forum
Alison Harrold - STEM Partnership Forum
Sarah Hill - Space Academy Project Manager, National Space Centre
Sue Knight - STEM Partnership Forum
Natalie Martin - STEM Partnership Forum
Charlie Mydlarz - Acoustics, Audio and Video Research, Salford University

Funded by
Ignition!
Creative Partnerships
East Midlands Development Agency