Poster Abstract
I provide an overview of the "Park in the Dark" events series I have run since 2017 in green spaces within Exeter. These events have each been organised in collaboration with Exeter's Community Builders and other local Community Interest Companies (CICs). Each event was customised to meet the needs of the community it aimed to reach but still retained the activity of stargazing at its core. To date, there have been eight events, ranging in size from small gatherings of 20 to 30 people, to large groups of 200 to 300 participants. I outline the successes of the project and some of the challenges that had to be overcome. In particular, I highlight how video meeting software (e.g. Zoom) can be used in conjunction with mobile star maps (e.g. Google Sky Map, Stellarium) to facilitate community stargazing while social distancing measures are still in place. Furthermore, I provide examples of how messages of Diversity and Inclusion can be woven into these events using starlore from different cultures around the world.
Plain text summary
This poster presents an overview of the Park in the Dark series of stargazing events I have run in Exeter over the past three and a half years. These events have been organised in collaboration with Exeter's Community Builders and other local Community Interest Companies (CICs, for short), in particular Interwoven Productions CIC and Working with Gold. The first slide provides context for the location of these events. Exeter is located down near the South West coast of England and a map is shown highlighting the locations of the different Park in the Dark events, scattered across the city. Slide two presents the aims of the events in terms of Science Communication and outreach with pictures showing attendees being guided around the night's sky and exploring the hands-on demonstration table. Example versions of the "Design your own constellation" worksheets are also shown. I have developed these to illustrate how our culture influences our star-lore. Slide three identifies some of the challenges I've faced in organising and orchestrating these events. One image shows how the events are advertised as happening during a particular week (to give us a better chance of choosing a day with better weather closer to the time). Another two images illustrate (1) how some people have had to be turned away from events as the number of attendees has reached limits imposed by council-regulated health and safety restrictions and (2) just how scarily effective using the social media accounts of the Community Builders is at advertising events to local residents. A final image on this slide shows how our most recent event was advertised to take place on Zoom to avoid a mass gathering in the park which would not have been safe with social distancing restrictions in place at the time. The final slide presents an overview of the feedback we've received from the events to date. When asked "Do you look up more than you did a week ago?", 60% of respondents said "More" with the other 40% reporting "No Change". When then asked "How often to you look up?", 20% of respondents said "Every day" while the other 80% said "Every week". An assortment of written feedback from the different Facebook event pages we've run are shown: (1) "Thanks to all. Really enjoyed it"; (2) "Thank you, it was fab xxx"; (3) "Thanks (smiley face) fun evening and I learnt a lot about the night sky"; (4) Thank you for hosting this, I dipped in for short times via Zoom, as I couldn't join in the park after all. What I heard was very interesting and I was very excited to see a shooting star seconds before Claire mentioned it! Thank you"; (5) Had a great time at the Broadfields stargazing party last night. Wouldn't have been able to join without Zoom. Thanks to everyone for organising"; (6) "Thanks for a brilliant evening, folks!"; (7) "Thanks for organising"; (8) "Thank you, it was great. So informative"; (9) "Thank you for an amazing night. It was fun, and very educational. That first one about 9:15pm when it was flaming across the sky was my highlight. I stayed until about 11:30pm (smiley face)"; (10) "It was lovely up on the hill. Thank you for organising this: it was great"; (11) "Joined via zoom...shame about the clouds but really interesting. Thanks to those who organised"; (12) "Thank you so much to everyone involved, was a wonderful evening, with some spectacular meteors".
Poster Title
Community built outreach: the "Park in the Dark" event series
