Oriel Science

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) represents a significant advance in the exploration of the universe through its unprecedented sensitivity and infrared capabilities. We will use the JWST to spark the public’s curiosity to inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers to share the wonder of the Universe with young people and the public in Wales.
Oriel Science will be a regional hub for running bilingual astronomy/STEM workshops with a particular emphasis on reaching under-represented groups in Wales. We aim to offer workshops for schools, home-schooled groups, the public/families, and also as part of our social prescribing programme.
The schools/home-schooled groups workshops will support the integral skills and new Curriculum for Wales’s Four Purposes, giving teachers new resources to support the new curricula they must develop, and enabling pupils to progress using innovative resources and data.
The public/families workshops will engage and enthuse all visitors to Oriel Science, particularly those from areas of high socio-economic deprivation and with low science capital. The workshops will also form part of our social prescribing programme with Swansea Bay University Health Board (SBUHB). Cultural spaces such as Oriel Science can play a role in health interventions particularly for socially isolated groups such as older people. Health care professionals have used social prescribing where participants are referred to programmes held in museums with research showing significant well-being improvements (Thomson et al.). We will use our existing relationship with the SBUHB to build on our existing provision of workshops.
We will partner with the Faulkes Telescope Project (FTP), which involves schools in real research from their classrooms using state-of-the-art optical robotic telescopes across the world. This will give the opportunity to showcase how astronomers use optical and IR wavelengths to study the cosmos and engage schools, teachers and the...