ALD News: The Ri's Science in Schools grants open, BSA seeks essays on community science
Plus an update on the Fieldwork ecology/creative writing project and lots of links for your reading pleasure!
Hi there,
I’ve spent the last few evenings craning my neck, trying to spot the Aurora Borealis which has been providing a show for a lot of people after five huge coronal mass ejections. Unlike the grey smudge in the sky that I saw on Friday night, today’s newsletter is crisp and clear, and contains some great opportunities as well as our usual news round-up. Enjoy!
Royal Institution Science in Schools grant scheme opens
The Royal Institution has opened applications for its Science in Schools grant scheme which covers the cost of a school visit from one of the Ri’s professional presenters between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2025. The visit includes:
Two performances of a science show for your students, designed to support the curriculum at KS1, KS2 or KS3
A CPD session for teachers, using interactive demonstrations to build the skills and confidence to inspire children with practical science
An after school or evening community show for a family audience, to generate support for science in the home. The community show can also be ticketed to raise funds for future activities at your school
The scheme is open to state-funded primary or secondary schools, academies, or maintained schools anywhere in the UK that have a member of staff teaching STEM and who otherwise would not be able to access this kind of opportunity.
The deadline for applications is Friday 24 May.
British Science Association seeks essays on community-engaged research
The British Science Association (BSA) is “looking for contributors for a new collection of essays and perspectives on the ways that communities and researchers can work together, which will be published later this year”.
At this stage they are looking for just brief outlines of your experiences and ideas. Proposals “should be relevant and accessible to people who are interested in facilitating, delivering, participating in or increasing their support for community-engaged research”. Selected contributions will ultimately be 800-1500 words. The open call closes at 17:00 BST on Weds 29 May.
i-COMET: Fieldwork project update
I’ve been beavering away on our exciting creative writing project, Fieldwork, which follows four fictional ecologists working in a remote field station as they try to get their research done without driving each other potty or screwing up their experiments.
In March, I went to the Big Comedy Conference in London, and realised that we’d chosen possibly the worst time to try to get a sitcom commissioned because the TV industry is in the middle of a significant downturn. So, after a chat with my collaborators, Prof Pen Holland and Prof Thorunn Helgason, we’ve decided to produce the script as a podcast. I’ll still submit the sitcom script to various open calls and competitions, but if we want to see Fieldwork out in the wild, it’s very likely that we’ll have to do it ourselves.
I’m also now in Week 5 of Dave Cohen’s Build A Script course, which is going amazingly well. We’ve worked on the basic premise, character, character relationships, and plots. This week, I’ll be writing three short treatments for possible episodes before I pick one and start writing. By the next newsletter, I should have a complete draft!
Looking for a little inspiration?
If you’re looking for a little inspiration, why not take a look at some of the profiles of amazing women in STEM that we’ve sent out via our newsletter over the last month. We’ve also posted Fran Scott’s fabulous video about fire from Ada Lovelace Day 2022!
Dr Fatemah Alharbi, Computer scientist: Fatemah Alharbi is an award-winning cybersecurity consultant, researcher and computer scientist who works to detect and analyse weak spots in security networks.
Prof Abla Mehio Sibai, Epidemiologist: Abla Mehio Sibai is an epidemiologist and public health activist who researches healthy ageing and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in older populations.
A bit more history of the candle: Fran Scott delves into her favourite fire-based demonstrations revealing some of its glorious secrets at Ada Lovelace Day Live Online 2022.
Prof Rajeshwari Chatterjee, Engineer: Rajeshwari Chatterjee was an Indian scientist, educator and the first female engineer from the state of Karnataka. She was among the first Indian scientists to research microwave engineering.
Dr Tasneem Zehra Husain, Physicist: Tasneem Zehra Husain is a theoretical physicist, science writer, educator and the first Pakistani woman to earn a PhD in string theory.
Enjoy!
Around the web
Here is our round up of links and reading that we’ve found this month!
Ada Lovelace featured: Ada Lovelace features in a new book by Alice Look and Jane Applegate, Remarkable Women: Reclaiming Their Stories. The book came out of the Remarkable Women Project which shared the stories of overlooked women in history. Jessica Sherill is interviewed about how studying English alongside her science degree helped her to piece together scientific history, leading her to work on transcribing Ada’s letters and other documents. On the History Extra podcast, Miranda Seymour talks about the life of Ada and her mother, Annabella Milbanke.
News: How can we address the leaky pipeline in academia? Anna Ginès i Fabrellas has some suggestions in Times Higher Education. Two women scientists achieved the world record for deepest dive with an all-female team last month in the South Pacific Ocean. Sarah Adelman writes for Nautilus about using comedy in science communication. Live Science finds out how graphic novels are helping to increase diversity in STEM, speaking to the scientists involved with the Curie Society series. How did socks inspire a science career? Read this piece by Abbe Little on her path to science.
Videos & podcasts: This month’s episode of the Lost Women of Science podcast focuses on the work of Jessy Randall, who wrote a book of poetry about women in science. Molly Campbell interviews Dr Erin Welsh and Dr Erin Allmann Updyke about the success of their podcast This Podcast Will Kill You and making science communication fun.
Books: Erin Zimmerman has written Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood and the Fight to Save an Old Science both about the rate at which women leave science, and the lack of natural botanists (she has also written this piece for LitHub on Lydia Ernestine Becker, and how botany moved from being seen as a “women’s pursuit” to a field for only men). Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor is a fascinating new book from chemist Arielle Johnson, using both her knowledge of science and her experience working at prestigious restaurant Noma.
That’s it for this month! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again in June!
All the best,
Suw & the ALD team