The Science Night: Revolutionizing Education with Science and Technology

1. To insert your company logo on this slide • From the Insert Menu • Select “Picture” • Locate your logo file • Click OK • To resize the logo • Click anywhere inside the logo. The boxes that appear outside the logo are known as “resize handles.” • Use these to resize the object. • If you hold down the shift key before using the resize handles, you will maintain the proportions of the object you wish to resize. The Vega Science Trust www.vega.org.uk vega@sussex.ac.uk 44 1273 678726

2. TheScienceNightNight The First Revolution in Education The printing press enabled people, other than monks, to create books and those who could, to read something other than the bible. This was the first revolution in the democratisation of public education.

3. TheScienceNightNight • The Second Revolution in Education • The Internet has democratised broadcasting • Anyone can now make a programme and broadcast on the Web • The media no longer control broadcast information • Broadcasting is at last a true educational medium

4. Vega Aim To develop Internet and TV platformsfor scientists and engineers to communicate directly

5. TheScienceNightNight Science Night 3 hours every Thursday night - BBC2/OU 00.30 - 3.30 (after midnight!) Audience 100,000 – 300,000 VEGA/OU co-productions

6. GM Foods Part 2

7. vega presentation.ppt

8. GM Foods – Safe?Lord Jenkin Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology:“I watched with complete fascination. It was by far the best discussion of the issues that I have seen or heard”

9. Financial Times 16th August 2000“The most enthralling programme I saw on television last week – in fact I have seen nothing so fascinating for months – was called The Next Big Thing: Nanotechnology”Vega OU co-production for BBC2

10. Programme Strands • Science Forum (The Next Big Thing)** • Lectures (RI Discourses, etc)** • The Young Scientist’s Day (Snapshots)* • The Revolutionaries of Science • Science Workshops for Young Children* • *BBC2 /OU *Internet

11. www.vega.org.uk Click on <Now showing> Need DSL or T1 connection • To insert your company logo on this slide • From the Insert Menu • Select “Picture” • Locate your logo file • Click OK • To resize the logo • Click anywhere inside the logo. The boxes that appear outside the logo are known as “resize handles.” • Use these to resize the object. • If you hold down the shift key before using the resize handles, you will maintain the proportions of the object you wish to resize.

12. The Vega Team

14.  I Make and broadcast SET programmes Vega has made 45 and broadcast 35 on BBC2  IIInaugurate a SET Night on TV OPEN SCIENCE has now started IIIStart a channel devoted to SET “TV-SET” IV Catalyse the development of a SET Web “IN-SET”

15. Public • Appreciation and • Understanding of • Science and • Engineering

16. Japan The Japanese Government, through the JST (Japanese Science and Technology Agency), inaugurated a pilot Science Channel in September 1998 Six hours of Science Programmes Saturday 10am - 4pm Repeated Sunday 10am - 4pm From 2001 the Channel will broadcast every day VEGA is working tocreate a similar initiative in the UK

17. The Science Night Programme Strands The Next Big Thing (Science Forum) Snapshots The Revolutionaries of Science

18. Snapshots A Vega initiative with ScreenhouseProductions* for • “Open Science” on BBC2* • Internet Educational Broadcasting • and BBC OnLine “Local Heroes” is a Sreenhouse Production *10 x 15’ TV programmes

19. Create new science programmes Sciencelink database Streaming eScience programmes TV broadcast Archive GM Food debate 45 programmes broadcast on BBC2 45 Archival programmes Database now has 20 links eg Chem Heritage etc 5 New Formats Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews

20. New programme initiatives Sciencelink database Streaming eScience programmes TV broadcast Archive GM Food debate 45 programmes broadcast on BBC2 45 Archival programmes Database now has 20 links eg Chem Heritage etc 5 New Formats Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews

21. New Science initiatives Sciencelink database Streaming eScience TV Science broadcast Science Archive Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews Snapshots 20 links Chem Heritage GM Food debate The Nexr Big Thing BBC2/OU Science Night 45 programmes

22. VEGA New science programmes Sciencelink database Streaming eScience TV broadcasting Archive creation Build up many more links, international Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews ScinceLight All Vega programmes to be made accessible on line Continue to catalyse terrestrial TV initiatves 4Build up a major Vega archive

23. VEGA Archive programmes Streaming eScience Sciencelink database New science programmes TV broadcasting Lectures - 12 RI, 2 RS 1 Workshop 4 Master-classes 9 Reflections 11 (10) Discussions 4 Interviews 10 snapshots 3 Science Archive GM Debate Vega excerpts 20 links, 10 UK 10 international 35 direct 2 indirect 40 programmes

24. VEGA Archive programmes Streaming eScience Sciencelink database New science programmes TV broadcasting Lectures - 12 RI, 2 RS 1 Workshop 4 Master-classes 9 Reflections 11 (10) Discussions 4 Interviews 10 snapshots 3 Science Archive GM Debate Vega excerpts 20 links, 10 UK 10 international 35 direct 2 indirect 40 programmes

25. PHASE I Make and broadcast SET programmes Vega has made 45 and broadcast 35 on BBC2  PHASE IIInaugurate a SET Night on TV OPEN SCIENCE has now started  PHASE IIIStart a channel devoted to SET “TV-SET” PHASE IVCatalyse the development of a SET Web “IN-SET”

26. Vega Internet Aim Network of science programme websites Campaign for sponsorship and support from Universities, Government and research based Industries

27. Royal Institution Discourses (1hr) VRI1 The Origin of Life : John Maynard Smith VRI2 The Chemistry of Interstellar Space : William Klemperer VRI3 C60, Buckminsterfullerene, the Celestial Sphere that Fell to Earth : Harold Kroto VRI4 Electron Waves Unveil the Microcosmos : Akira Tonomura VRI5 Nuclear Power Plant Safety - What’s the Problem? John Collier VRI6 Science and Fine Art : David Bomford VRI7 Tick, Tick, Tick Pulsating Star : How we wonder what you are : Jocelyn Bell Burnell VRI8 Self-Assembly: Nature’s Way to do it : Kuniaki Nagayama VRI9 Carbon Nanotubes: The Tiniest Man-made Tubes : Sumio Iijima VRI10 The Epidemic of Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in the UK Roy Anderson VHS Copies of all our programmes are available

28. Vega Science Programmes Reflections on Science (1 hr) Nuts and Bolts of the Mind, Susan Greenfield On the Air, Mike Garrett There Ain’t Nothing Nowhere, David Miller How to be Right and Wrong, Sir John Cornforth In the Oceans Jacqui McGlade How X-rays cracked the structure Amand Lucas of DNA Electricity, Magnetism and the body Tony Barker Creativity and computers Margaret Boden Chemistry; Architecture of the Harold Kroto Microcosmos Science Masterclasses (1/2 hr) States of Matter, John Murrell Life in Space, Helen Sharman Bernal & the Social Function Chris Freeman of Science Flight in Birds and Aeroplanes, John Maynard Smith

29. Financial Times 16th August 2000“If opting for a Reithian 4-network scheme is the only way to get back to a service with serious current affairs, proper arts coverage and programmes at reasonable times about such matters as nanotechnology, then so be it”

30. A Second Revolution in Education Now anyone can create programmes and broadcast them on the internet so that everyone has access to them The media no longer has control of information and so the Internet has democratised broadcasting and given birth to a second revolution in education TheScienceNightNight

31. Shortlisted Chemical Industries Association Presidents award: 1998, 1999“Prix Leonardo”2000

32. Financial Times 16th August 2000“The Building Blocks of the BBC”A (Vega)/OU programme causes Christopher Dunkley to rethink his views on the corporation’s plans to stream its TV programmes

33. Financial Times 16th August 2000“The Building Blocks of the BBC”“However, I have not changed hats. The point is that this programme was made by the Open University (and Vega!!!) and shown on BBC2 at 12.30 at night. It will have been seen by only a tiny handful of viewers”

34. GM Foods Part 1

35. Production Style The young scientists and engineers featured will be ‘letting us in’ on their lives, recorded in‘fly-on-the-wall’style They will speak directly to us, explaining what theyare trying to do from their personal viewpoint Importantly, they will help us to understand how science works and why they find it so engrossing Personal stories, ideas and ambitions areimportant and will give the programmes shape

36. Who/what will be featured? The all-round expertise needed by a young universitychemistrylecturer conducting research, teaching tutorials, giving seminars and carrying out administrative roles The medicalchallenge needed to uncoverthe genetic basis of illness The problem solving ability needed by a young CERN physicistto tune a detector for highest sensitivity The genius needed to win the Formula 1 championship resides as much in the mechanical engineeringas the driving skills of Michael Schumacher The imagination needed by a heating engineerto combine green energetics with aesthetic architectural design as well as a satisfying workingenvironment in a modern hi-tech buliding

37. The Purpose of the Series The main purpose of Snapshots is to inform school students and potential university students,who are contemplating studying science and taking it up as a profession, about the world of ‘real’ science Our belief is that if school pupils and others knew more about the everyday world of science, more would choose it as a career and thus our programmes are aimed at reversing the recent trend away from the sciences As well as the key transmission slot on BBC2, Snapshots will be made available to schools and others on videoand eventually on DVD and by broadband streaming

38. In his book “A Healing Family” Oe Kenzaburo writes about his disabled son Hikari: “Sitting nearby with a book, listening to his piano lessons, I can feel the best, most human things in his character finding lively and fluent expression… I feel in awe of the richness of his inner life. Yet this is a life that, were it not for music, would have remained hidden, would have been utterly unknown to me, to my wife, and Hikari’s younger brother and sister.” A Healing Family Kenzaburo Oe Illustrated by Yukari Oe

39. Recently, at a conference to bring the Arts and the Sciences together, I was the scientist speaker among musicians, artists, architects, poets, writers, dancers, performers etc… A young Women got up to say – “Are you not missing the point - As Science reveals more-and-more of the way things work it destroys the beauty and mystery of the Universe” The most depressing aspect of this truly stupid comment was the fact the audience applauded her. I asked – “Why did you applaud?”

40. This attitude is the most serious problem in educating the young to appreciate and understand science and technology. Science is the the dominant culture of the 20th century and will dominate the 21st even more. To survive we shall need all those in positions of responsibility to understand the way that science works, something of its methods its achievements and why in some cases of importance to society answers may take a long time. BSE – which is a long term inductance disease - is one such case; Politicians needed to take decisions long before scientific research could yield reliable results.

41. I was once asked by a young student how to win a Nobel Prize. My answer was that I was very satisfied with and proud of my achievements before we made our great discovery and never thought about the Nobel Prize nor dreamed of winning it. All I can say is - do not dream of winning prizes. Apply yourself to any activity that really interests YOU and that YOU enjoy. Do it as hard and as well as you can and never give up and try not to let anyone down. You will then find that, in general, you will have achieved more than others whom you might think are cleverer or smarter or more able than you. They will not achieve more because they have not the passion or the determination to create that you have. Your creation is your real prize - If you win a prize that will be a bonus.

42. The Public is oblivious to the debt it owes to Science and Engineering The public is ill served by TV which is driven entirely by advertising and as a result we are fed a complete diet of progammes chosen entirely for their entertainment value and for their zero educational content. TV programmes are the equivalent of Hello and OK magazines. This is unsatisfactory and perhaps also very dangerous in a world dominated by society’s blindly voracious appetite for the benefits of Science and Engineering

43. Turns out it’s not enough to have invented the car, the bomb, fluorescent lighting, aluminium, and BSE Not enough to have convinced us that animals have no emotions Having identified genes, they now get to patent them They’ve paved the way for total annihilation of the planet! No; Scientists want something more: they want us to buy their silly popular science books and spend our last precious moments of earthly existence reading them Lucy EllmannThe Guardian 1999

44. There are several layers of beauty in the physical and natural worlds They lie underneath the obvious one that we see with our unaided eyes or even through the most powerful microscope. The abstract beauty and elegant symbolism of these hidden layers can be appreciated using elegant mathematical language We find that we can uncover the intricate patterns which describe the beautiful world of atoms and particles of light (photons) and the way light and matter interact

45. In this presentation we shall explore many aspects of these hidden elegant worlds which add further to our sense of wonder and uncover ubiquitous patterns which permeate all aspects of: Nature The Physical World The Arts Architecture Engineering We seek to add new dimensions to our intellectual experience and our understanding of the complex meaning of culture in the 21st Century

47. Susan Greenfield – the new director of the Royal Institution - on seeing herself in a magazine: “Perhaps one automatically thinks that one is going to look like Naomi Cambell and of course I didn’t. I looked like a dumpy middle-aged scientist” As if she could ever look lik e a scientist let alone a dumpy middle-aged one (!!!) Newspaper interviewer - Sabine Durrant