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Short Abstract

The Natural History Museum London has a well-established community science programme and has recently created a new role dedicated to upskilling facilitators. Following participation in ECS Academy, we showcase how we have been applying the insights gained in three upskilling strategies.

Abstract

The Natural History Museum London’s Community Science Programme is well established, having delivered a broad range of innovative community science research projects for over fifteen years. The Museum has an institutional commitment to EDI and actively works to engage the widest possible audience in its programmes. The Programme recognises the need for innovative strategies and deliberate action for community science to shift away from the periphery and engage people beyond current audiences.

Following participation in the ECS Academy’s regular Trainers and Educators network meetings, and the Train the Trainer and Citizen Science in the Classroom courses, the Museum implemented three contrasting strategies for training community science facilitators.

The need to upskill facilitators, especially in one-to-many sessions, enables community science projects to scale up while at the same time being locally-relevant and impactful, thanks to facilitators’ close ties with the local community. The Museum has recently created a role dedicated to upskilling, therefore identifying impactful training approaches for different audiences is a priority.

In this presentation, we share lessons and reflections from three training approaches: short-term training of work placement students, medium-term training of Museum facilitators, and Train the Trainer for project staff and external collaborators for long-term impact. We compare these strategies, examine their relative degrees of success, resource intensity and potential to scale further. Finally, we share reflections on the benefits of the Academy itself in providing new lenses and reflective practice amongst the community science practitioner community.