We’ve just published the latest batch of zone reports for the recent November 2015 round of I’m a Scientist. You can find them here, or at the bottom of this post, but before you dive into the pretty pie charts and wicked wordles, we felt it would be useful to provide some context to keep in mind as you read:

We had an inkling that November’s eight zones were going to be big. As we reported beforehand, due to extremely high demand from teachers, it was the first time ever that we had to turn schools away from I’m a Scientist. We also had to limit the number of classes of those taking part to one or two per zone to fit as many schools in as possible. Without doing this we would have had to run double the number of zones to cover the demand.

So, after the hype, exactly how big were the zones in November? Here are some headline figures:

• 481 students, on average, logged in to each zone. Compare this to the historical average of 353, and a target of at least 300 per zone.
• Students submitted an average of 956 questions per zone and half of the zones saw well over 1000. The event average is 717 questions.
• 20 live chats per zone was the average number in November. This is also usually the maximum number we allow.

The averages for the November 2015 event and the averages over three years of I’m a Scientist UK. ‘% of students active’ is percentage of students who logged in and used ASK, CHAT or VOTE. Asterisks denote new record averages for an event.

While the figures above are incredible in terms of numbers of students interacting with the site, high zone numbers aren’t everything. In fact, what’s best for both students and scientists is running smaller zones and more of them.

We still had great feedback from the students, teachers and scientists in November, but the bigger a zone gets, there are potential consequences. Scientists can only do so much in two weeks and with so many live chats happening, we did see slightly less scientists per chat in some zones. There’s also less chance for students to come up with their own ASK questions that haven’t been asked before, and then receive answers made just for them. The lower proportion of approved questions to submitted questions reflects this.

We don’t want these consequences. We want every student to have their own high quality, personalised interaction with a scientist. An increased number of smaller zones would make this easier for everyone.

The situation we’re in also means we have to choose which schools take part, and in an effort to reach those who lack regular STEM engagement, we’ve started prioritising places for Widening Participation and rural schools. Ideally, however, we want all schools who register for an event to get a place in a zone.

Thanks to our current funders, and the sterling efforts of the scientists, November was a success. But if we’re near the limit of zone size now, what’s next? Luckily, the high demand for I’m a Scientist represents a huge opportunity for organisations to reach the public. Being oversubscribed means we can show there are hundreds of schools ready to engage with hundreds of keen scientists. All that’s needed is the funding for the zones to let them get on with it, and we’re going to try our best to make that happen.

November 2015 Reports:

• Ageing Zone
• Extreme Pressure Zone
• Heart Zone
• Spectroscopy Zone
• Osmium Zone
• Rhenium Zone
• Tantalum Zone
• Tungsten Zone