Presenter: Christian Lao, christian.lao.21@ucl.ac.uk
Theme: Engagement mediums and practice
Reporter: Kathryn Boast
One sentence summary: The Orbyts project pairs researchers and teams of school students to undertake research, with extensive training to ensure projects are appropriate, valuable and engaging.
Description
Orbyts is a programme that pairs researchers with schools to facilitate school student-led science research. Each researcher is matched with a group of around 10 GCSE or A Level students, and they typically run 14 1.5-hour sessions over a year. Although the projects are researcher-led, the aim is to get the students to have ownership of the research.
Orbyts is motivated by chronic physics teacher shortages, chronic diversity issues at many levels in physics, and poor physics education in some schools. Orbyts works with schools in areas where the project can have a high impact. Schools are often in socio-economically deprived areas, and groups must be at least 50% gender minorities. The project provides relatable role models for young people, and teachers have said it reignited their passion for science. The research projects undertaken can occasionally be good enough for students and researchers to get publications out of the work.
To make sure projects and researchers are going to be engaging and effective, researchers take part in an extensive training programme. We will focus on the first section of this, which concerns how to design and risk-mitigate a project, and how to build relationships with students.
Designing a project can be hard and can fail. It’s important to really know the audience, and this includes having conversations with the teacher about the strengths, weaknesses and interests of their students.
When thinking of possible research topics, researchers should identify the core topic of their research, the tools and theories they use on a daily basis, and the relevant equations or topics that are learned in school.
Often, topics will need to be explained at a suitable level for the students. To break down a topic, try writing it as a sentence, and then highlighting the subject, action and outcome. Then re-write the sentence with as little detail as possible, checking if it still makes sense by seeing whether the subject, action and outcome are still there.
When planning a session, think about ways you can keep the learning active, to engage students who are tired at the end of a long school day!
Finally, creating a good project requires timelining (how many sessions you can run?), risk mitigation and contingency planning in case something in the project goes wrong.
To build trust and engagement, and dispel stereotypes, the first session with students should be about you and your story. Talking about your failures makes you more relatable, and students value honesty such as telling them it isn’t easy for you either. It’s worth also talking about your peers and what they do.
All this training is delivered by the Orbyts team in small groups, with best practice sharing and discussion. The team also manages school liaison and runs an annual conference at which students present posters outlining their work. The project now has eight years of evaluation data, with details in the recently published Orbyts Impact Report.
Key messages
- The Orbyts project has demonstrated impact on school students through school student-led science research projects that are supported by researchers.
- Designing a good project is key but can be challenging. It is most effective when it connects directly to the researcher’s main research, but effort must go into making sure it is appropriate and well-explained for students.
- The Orbyts team provides extensive training for researchers to support them through the process of designing a good project. This includes advice on how to break a topic down and tailor it to the audience, as well as how to deliver engaging learning.
- Building trust and engagement with the students is important, and it’s useful for the researcher to talk about themselves and their peers, especially at the start.
- The project currently runs in three hubs but two more are joining. Researchers or teachers interested in getting involved in Orbyts can email info@orbyts.org.
Resources
The main website for the Orbyts project, which includes information for both researchers and teachers who might be interested in taking part.
Here you can find the Orbyts impact report, published in 2024, alongside some headline statistics about the project.
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