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In the STFC-funded Epistemic Insight Initiative project, The Power of Light, a series of resources have been designed and informed by co-creation activities, pilot lessons, and workshops that involved children in schools and with their families in community spaces. Through this project with Diamond, Epistemic Insight at Canterbury Christ Church University brought into classrooms and community spaces how light can be used to help investigate the world around us, address real-world problems and inform our thinking about Big Questions. The resources developed support teachers' and their students' sense of agency when exploring 'how knowledge works' and how knowledge is built through different disciplines (including the natural sciences, the arts, and the humanities).
Zines use an appealing combination of text and images to create a concise comic-like narrative format to generate enthusiasm about a particular area of interest - the series of zines designed for this project focus on research taking place at Diamond Light Source.
These zines are designed to be accessible to ages 8+, and work well with a short animation (available below as well as in both Zenodo and on the Epistemic Insight You Tube channel). The animation has been created with additional funding from STFC. Teaching notes are available for all zines, with guidance and activity sheets to support working with the Power of Light resources.
The Power of Light Zine 1 - Why do things change?
This 'zine', with its focus on how scientists have been working with historians and archaeologists to preserve the Mary Rose (Henry the Eighth's favourite ship that was sunk in the Solent in England's southern coast), has been developed through co-creative activities involving research scientists at Diamond Light Source (UK), academics, primary school teachers, STEM ambassadors, and Diamond's public engagement team.
This zine explores these discussion questions:
1) What are examples of changes we can observe?
2) What helps us to know more about the things around us?
3) What might we use to help us observe changes?
Download Zine 1 here.
Download Zine 1 Teaching Notes here.
The Power of Light Zine 2 - Why does life exist?
This 'zine', with its focus on how scientists have been working with paleotonologists to investigate evidence, found inside the fossilised leg of a thescelosaurus, of the cataclysmic event that led to the extinction of dinosaurs. Zine 2 'Why does life exist?' has been developed through co-creative activities involving research scientists at Diamond Light Source (UK), academics, primary school teachers, STEM ambassadors, and Diamond's public engagement team.
This zine explores these discussion questions:
1) What is needed for living things to exist on Earth?
2) What helps us to learn more about past events?
3) What enables us to be able say we 'know' something?
Download Zine 2 here.
The Power of Light Zine 3 - Why do we explore the world around us?
This 'zine', with its focus on how scientists have been working with astronomers, geographers, and other disciplines to explore relationships between matter in environments that we cannot directly experience here on Earth, in space, and into the future through the use of scientific modelling and a synchrotron. Zine 3, with its focus on space and energy, has been developed through co-creative activities involving research scientists at Diamond Light Source (UK), academics, primary school teachers, STEM ambassadors, and Diamond's public engagement team.
This zine explores these discussion questions:
1) What do we know about our planet Earth (and how it 'works')?
2) What can help us build knowledge about things beyond planet Earth?
3) What might help to inform our thinking when making choices and decisions?
Download Zine 3 here.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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