In recent years funders of public engagement and outreach activities have made a priority of reaching underserved audiences.

Wherever we looked we found anecdotal evidence that while, as a sector we were becoming increasingly effective at reaching schools in deprived parts of our metropolitan areas, rural communities continued to miss out.

But anecdotal data only gets you so far. We wanted to find out just how much the more remote schools were missing out. We also wanted to know what constitutes a remote school in this context.

First we looked to see what information already existed. There are some organisations who hold vast quantities of data about scientists and engineers visiting schools. However that data was not easily available for analysis. So we turned to a source we could access. The teachers who have signed up for our projects.

We wanted to find out:

• Whether some schools access more STEM enrichment activities than others
• And if so, is the location of the school a limiting factor
• Whether there’s a difference between visits to the school, and visits from the school

Method:

We surveyed teachers who have registered for any of our UK based projects, including I’m a Scientist, I’m an Engineer and Debate Kits. The teachers were predominantly subject teachers. We therefore worked on the assumption that teachers can best talk about the classes they teach, and it would be unreliable for them to make assumptions about the wider school.

Who answered the survey?

Survey respondents: Subject taught (left), type of school taught at (centre), and location of schools (right).

What did we find?

Distance really matters.

Access to STEM engagement is not universal. Schools within 15 minutes drive of a major research HEI are twice as likely to get a visit from a university scientist than those over a 30 minute drive.

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be a difference when arranging to take students off-site for visits, but with teachers citing costs and time restraints as barriers to offering these activities, it’s clear to us that we need to be improving the offer to more distant schools.

If you have any comments, thoughts, or would like to know more, please get in touch with shane@mangorol.la.

Many thanks to the iGeolise team for providing the drive time data.