Making Place Final Report 2012
Your name & organisation: Susan Brumpton, The Making Place
Project title: Astronomy Parade @ the Small World Festival
Project description
Project Type: Various activities including workshops, discussions, stargazing and a parade.
Project website: www.facebook.com/themakingplace
Project start date & end date: 31st May – Mon 4th May 2012
Location: Small World Solar Powered Festival, Headcorn, Kent
Target audience: Children, Parents, Kids Field Crew, musicians & members of the public
Aim and objectives?
 To inspire and enthuse 300 people about astrophysics by holding an Astronomy Parade.
 To work in partnership with Small World Solar Stage and the Travelling Observatory to reach
beyond the classroom to bring physics to a new audience.
 To engage with hard to reach audiences, in particular children and members of the travelling
community, and the musicians and crew who work the festival circuit.
 To encourage more visitors to Small World to use the telescopes
 To explore the concepts of scale and space, using costumes and lanterns created for the parade
 To engage older children in discussing astronomy and astrophysics by offering the opportunity to
build a technical model, and to develop an understanding of pulleys and pivots.
 To stimulate debate and discussion around the subjects of astronomy and astrophysics,
particularly as many people’s imaginations and interest in the public have already been caught
by the notion of planetary movement due to the Mayan Calendar and the Doomsday prophecies.
 To develop the skills needed to communicate with an adult audience
 To conducting a thorough evaluation against the above aims & objectives.
What did actually you do?
50 Words for Collective Memory submission:
We explored the scale and majesty of the universe by modelling the movement of the sun, earth &
moon, and used what we could see through telescopes to create ‘realistic’ costumes for an
astronomy themed Kids Parade at the Small World Solar Powered Festival in May 2012
This project was supported by an IOP public engagement grant
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More Detail for IoP Report:
Every year the Small World Festival kids craft area put on a parade which traverses the festival
site, with around 300 children, parents, musicians and festival goers cheering them along the
route. In Spring 2012 the Making Place joined forces with the Travelling Observatory and the Small
World Kids crew to help build giant lanterns in the shape of the planets and create a carnival style
‘Sun’ costume and children and adults made star lanterns and astronomy themed costumes to
wear in a grand parade around the site.
The Making Place ran a workshop building models using a simple pulley system to make the moon
rotate round the earth as it circles the sun, which was used to explain eclipses and to start
discussions about the scale and nature of the universe. Participants also used the telescopes and
images on the Travelling Observatory van as inspiration when decorating their models and creating
the costumes.
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The Making Place and Travelling Observatory volunteers discussed with participants what they
know about astronomy & the solar system in the telescope dome using diagrams painted on the
Travelling Observatory van as a backdrop for the telescopes and workshops.
The physicist with the Travelling Observatory ensured the accuracy of discussions on formation of
planets, galaxies etc. The models and parade costumes and lanterns were then used to discuss
scale – if the Sun was really the size of the sun costume leading the parade – how big would the
earth be? And how far away would the earth need to be for the distances to be to scale? How
much further would we the stars be? Thus inspiring festival goers to make new connections with
physics and view the world around them in a different light.
Please visit the Making Place Facebook page for a video of the parade
https://www.facebook.com/theMakingPlace?ref=ts&fref=ts
Photographs of all the activities can be found in
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150856083067750.405067.46263897749&type=1
A video of Orrery Making workshop is also on the Making Place page and on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SjMDNp4eLtE#!
Evaluation results
Description of method of evaluation: (30 words only).
We recorded photographic & video evidence of the parade and costumes and workshops.
Participants were also invited to give feedback using the IoP sample Exit Questionnaires.
Analysis and conclusion:
An analysis of whether your project met its aims
Aim
To inspire and enthuse 300
children, musicians &
members of the public
about astronomy and
astrophysics by holding an
Astronomy Parade.
Outcome
Worked with approximately 530 people throughout the project - approx 290 adults
and 240 children.
Telescope (night)
Solar Scopes
Paintings on Observatory Van
Costume Building
Making Place Orrery Workshop
Astronomy Parade
45
25
20
40
36
80
Children
Children
Children
Children
Children
Children
60 Adults
25 Adults
30 Adults
25 Adults
28 Adults
120 Adults
To work in partnership with
Small World Solar Stage
and the Travelling
Observatory to reach
beyond the classroom to
bring physics to a new
audience. In particular,
many children who may not
previously have had any
opportunity to develop an
interest in physics.
By making this year’s Kids Parade theme ‘Astronomy’ this project was
guaranteed a ready made audience. Comments on the evaluation sheets make it
clear many participants were engaging with physics for the first time.
To engage with hard to
reach audiences, in
particular children and
members of the travelling
community, and the
musicians and crew who
work the festival circuit
To encourage more visitors
to Small World to use the
telescopes for inspiration
for their costumes and
Many of the children attending the festival are home educated and not receiving
any formal education. The Making Place has 12 years experience of working with
home educated children and appreciate that parents often find it very difficult to
teach science subjects which means children often miss out on this vital area of
education. We used our experience of running similar science activities on the
Kidz Field at Glastonbury Festival to engage with this hard to reach audience.
All participants who answered the questions agreed with the statements: “I have
made new connections between physics and the world around me”, “I feel more
positive about physics” and “I will continue to talk/think about this activity”
Only one person disgreed with each of the statements “I have developed an
interest in something I knew little about before” and “this activity made me want to
find out more”– compared with 6 and 9 respondents who strongly agreed with
these statements.
From the completed evaluation forms it is clear that many people used the
Travelling Observatory Telescopes for the first time in May 2012.
Q: Did anything surprise you?
A: “How clearly I could see through the telescope”
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lanterns.
To explore the concepts of
scale and space, using the
costumes and lanterns
created for the parade as
examples.
A: “How quickly the planets disappeared from view in the telescope viewer”
A: “I saw a number of sky objects I hadn’t seen before”
Q: What did you like best?
A: “using the computerised tracking to view things I had only seen in books”
A: “How awe inspiring and humbling it was”
Elisa Kraus from the Travelling Observatory spent several days working with the
Kids Area craft crew making costumes and discussing astrophysics. She ensured
that the costumes reflected the size differences of the planets and the Sun –
using the images on the Travelling Observatory van (funded by a previous IoP
Grant) to illustrate scale. The kids also took close looks at the Sun with the solar
telescope, and learned to identify some of the features, as can be seen in the
giant Sun they built and other costumes were painted based on observations of
detail on the moon the Rings of Saturn.
Q: What did you like best?
A: “seeing the rings of Saturn & the craters of the moon through the telescope”
The Making Place also discussed scale in relation to our Solar System Model,
where if the earth was actually shrunk down to the size of our model – then to
scale the Sun would still be the size of a very large beach ball – and would be as
far away as the bottom of the field.
Q: Did you find out anything surprise you?
A: “Yes the scale! Of the Sun to the Moon to the Earth”.
A: “It’s very big”
Furthermore, Elisa used a scale representation of a Saturn V rocket launcher and
Apollo mission to demonstrate the moon landing and discuss gravity at different
stages of the mission which emphasized the size difference between Moon and
Earth.
To engage older children in
discussing astronomy and
astrophysics by offering the
opportunity to build a
technical model, and to
develop an understanding
of pulleys and pivots.
This was the one less successful area of the project as very few teenagers
participated in the project. None of the 23 Exit Questionnaires was from anyone
aged 15-20 and only 1 aged 10-15 – though that one (age 10 ½ ) did specifically
mention the “drilling” as ‘what they liked best’. This was also mentioned as the
best thing by several younger children as well.
However the Orrery making did attract a far larger number of adults than
expected who thoroughly enjoyed the making activity.
Q: What did you like best?
A: “It was fun making the elastic band fit at the end” (age 39 ¾)
Q: Did anything surprise you?
A: “How easy it was to make a simple pulley system to make it rotate” (age 27)
To stimulate debate and
discussion around the
subjects of astronomy and
astrophysics, particularly
as many people’s
imaginations and interest in
the public have already
been caught by the notion
of planetary movement due
to the Mayan Calendar and
the Doomsday prophecies.
With the Kids Crew the Travelling Observatory chatted mainly about the
differences between the planets especially the differences in gravity. We got the
kids to think about how different creatures on Earth look in different
environments, and imagine what creatures might look like on different types of
planets could they have evolved there, i.e. we might be all pancake-like shaped
on worlds with more gravity. We also discussed the importance of Water for life.
To develop the skills
needed to communicate
with an adult audience (the
parents, musicians and
other participants in the
parade) who are not
engaged with science.
The large number of adults participating in this project, particularly in the Making
Place workshop has been a real pleasure. There is more opportunity to discuss
ideas with adults as they tend to need less help with the construction. With
children it is necessary to concentrate a lot on actually building the model.
The kids also looked at the pictures on the Travelling Observatory Van, and they
Observatory also supplied a number of books for different ages that could be
used as reference in the area where the costumes were built.
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Three aspects of the project that we were most pleased with:
1. The number of adults who took part in the Making Place Orrery Workshop and costume making
and the discussions about astronomy and physics which we entered into during these workshops.
Q: Did it make you want to find anything more about science/physics?
A: “It made me think of planets and our place in the universe” (age 39 ¾)
2. The way people used their observations through the telescopes to design and colour their
models and creations.
Q: I was most Surprised by?
A: “Solar Flares”
Q: What did you like best?
A: “seeing the rings of Saturn and craters of moon”
A: “painting the sun”
3. The quality of photographs & video of this project. One of the sound engineers at the festival
Mathew James Oliver Organ volunteered to take video’s of the Making Place workshop and the
Kids Parade, as well as taking photographs on another day. In addition two professional
photographers Royston Naylor and Phil Wolstenholme photographed the workshops, as well as
joining in with the making activities.
Their photo’s of the festival have also been posted on the Small World Facebook page
www.facebook.com/smallworldstage
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.410686425641843.88297.231904760186678&type=1
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150857788621272.405380.745546271&type=1
and on the photographers own pages
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At least three learning points for this project:
1. It was difficult to get many people to fill in formal questionnaires in a festival setting. Only 11 exit
questionnaires were completed at the festival – all by participants in the Making Place Workshop,
where the more formal workshop activity made it easier to ask people to fill in the form. It’s worth
noting that most people came into the telescope dome where we held the workshop in groups –
either parents and children, or groups of friends. In some cases the group filled in one form
between them, so the 11 forms represent the views of up to 5 people in each case. This means
that at least 50% or more of the Making Place participants gave some kind of feedback.
Following the festival the Making Place and the Travelling Observatory sent out additional forms by
email and requested feedback on Facebook. We received a further 12 Exit Questionnaires bringing
the total to 23.
As this is little over 4% of the participants in this project detailed analysis of the statistics are not
appropriate. However as a snapshot of participants attitudes and opinions the feedback forms have
been invaluable as a tool
Q: I was Surprised by:
A: “The level of knowledge being showed in a field and the age range of interested people”
A: “How such a complicated subject was explained so simply and clearly”
2. It was also very, very difficult to count the exact number of people participating in the parade or
even in the craft workshops and telescope because people tend to drift in and out of these
activities over the course of several days. With the Orrery Workshops it was very easy to count the
number of models completed (26), and as participants tended to be working together in groups on
their models it was also much easier to keep a tally of participants. Hence the figure of 64
participants in the Making Place workshop is likely to have a variance of +/-2 at most, where as the
numbers of participants in the Astronomy Parade has been estimated by counting the number of
people in the 2 video’s of the event made by our volunteer. This is probably the most effective way
of counting how many children, parents, musicians and the festival going public took part in the
procession around the Small World site on Sunday afternoon.
3. The biggest disappointment of the project was the very small number of older teenagers who
took part. The Travelling Observatory attracts their attention and many looked through the
telescopes both during the day and at night and the Observatory team are excellent at engaging
with them. However only a very few took part in the creative activities which were also a part of the
project, and mostly only when looking after younger siblings – though as was mentioned under
“aspects of the project that we were most pleased with”, the opportunity to “build a technical
model, and to develop an understanding of pulleys and pivots” did attract a wide variety of adults to
the Making Place workshop.
4. The last learning point is that despite all the various diagrams, explanations, observations and
models, some people left comments on their feedback forms which show the difficulties people
have when conceptualising the universe.
Q: Did you find out anything new?
A: “How the sun goes round the earth”
Hopefully the person making this comment will realise the opposite when they look at the model
they have just made.
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Barriers encountered during project:
One feedback form commented that it was difficult to get into the telescope dome in a wheelchair,
but once inside the Observatory team were able to adjust the height of the telescope to enable
access.
The only other barrier encountered was the weather which did make using the telescopes
impossible on a number of occasions.
Project Legacy:
The Making Place has previously experimented with running science workshops in the Kids Area
at Small World. In 2010 we tried out our “Honeycomb Toffee workshop (solids, liquids & gasses)
on a festival audience for the first time. Following the success of both these projects the Making
Place, Travelling Observatory, Small World and their Kids Crew are all keen to work together again
on projects that fall within the charities overall aim “to advance the education of the public and in
particular young people of school age in science and design and technology” by encouraging an
interest in Science & Technology through the facilitation of practical making activities that
demonstrate scientific principles.
The Small World Kids area has a dedicated team of volunteers and craft workers who put on a
fabulous range of activities and the Travelling Observatory has been participating in the Small
World Festivals for many years so the Making Place will use the links strengthened by this project
to seek out new ideas for collaborations in the future.
In addition, a possible legacy project is already underway to develop the link with Small World
Sound Engineers who through our volunteer who photographed and video the activities last May
for the Making Place. We are hoping to initiate a new venture which will hopefully engage anyone
at the festival interested in music and how sound is engineered. It is hoped this will include the
difficult to reach older teenage group who attend the Small World Festival. Funding is currently
being sought.
From the Exit Questionnaires it is clear that for some participants the legacy of this project is a
lasting interest in these topics and a desire to carry on their interest after the festival.
Q: Did it make you want to know more about science/physics
A: “Indeed, have bought a couple of astronomical apps for my phone and have started taking
photo’s of the moon.”
A: “It made me want a large telescope”
To share what we have learnt during the course of this project the Making Place will post this
evaluation onto the Making Place Facebook page as a note so that other science engagement
practitioners who are fans of our page can read about our successes.
The photographs and video’s on Facebook and YouTube also form a lasting legacy of this project,
as do the hand made lanterns and carefully constructed models the participants took home with
them.
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Finally a guide to building your own Orrery has also been posted on the Making Place Facebook
page in the album of photographs for this project and it is possible to buy a kit containing all the
parts needed to construct the model from the Making Place in.
Actual costs vs those quoted in application:
Funding
Received
Actual Cost
invoiced for
Materials for making parade costumes & lanterns
£100
£100
Kids Craft Crew staff to build Astronomy themed costumes
£400
£400
Making Place solar model building workshop
£300
£300
Travelling Observatory to provide additional telescope time
for observations and to discuss & debate Astronomy &
Astrophysics with participants during the workshop.
£200
£200
Advice you would give to others doing a similar project in the future:
My advice is not to underestimate the value of written evaluation forms even if it is difficult to collect
them, the feedback from just a few forms can be highly informative, and also to emphasise the
value of recruiting photographers to record your activities to form a lasting memory.
The Exit Questionnaires offered the following advice from participants:
Q: How Could the Event be Improved?
A: “Although the personnel and group teaching has been second to none, I believe further
equipment and visual aids would greatly enhance the experience!”
A: “A proper scientific Orrery on display”
A: “A Second Telescope”
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A: “A more accessible dome & telescope so my wheelchair could get close enough.”
Publicity materials:
We publicised the activities to fans of the Small World Festival and Making Place on Facebook. As
only attendees at the Festival could participate we did not produce any external publicity materials
for this project.
The photographs and video’s in this report can also be downloaded from
www.facebook.com/themakingplace
Please contact Phil Wolstenholme or Royston Naylor if the Institute wishes to use any of their
photographs. Contact details are included in the watermark.
My favourite is the video was produced by Small World Sound Engineer James Oliver Organ which
is on the Making Place Facebook Page and on YouTube, which shows the Making Place workshop
taking place in the Telescope Dome in the heart of the festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SjMDNp4eLtE
Send your final report to the Physics in Society team by email (physics.society@iop.org) or by post
(Physics in Society, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT). Your report should
be submitted by 31 December 2012.
The Collective Memory Database can be found at
http://collectivememory.britishscienceassociation.org/
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