www vega org uk This attitude is

www. vega. org. uk

This attitude is the most serious problem in educating the young to appreciate and understand science and technology. Science is the dominant culture of the 20 th century and will dominate the 21 st even more. To survive we shall need all those in positions of responsibility to understand the way that science works, something of its methods its achievements and why in some cases of importance to society answers may take a long time. BSE – which is a long term inductance disease - is one such case; Politicians needed to take decisions long before scientific research could yield reliable results.

The First Revolution in Education The printing press enabled anyone - not just monks - to create books and read something other than the bible Thus education was democratised

The Internet is set to bring about the Second Educational Revolution

• Anyone can make programmes • Anyone can broadcast • The media no longer control broadcasting • At last broadcasting is an educational medium • The Internet has democratised broadcasting

Vega Aim To develop Internet and TV platforms for scientists and engineers to communicate directly

There are several key points: 1. Flexible 2. Experimental/developmental 3. Synergistic 4. Networking 5. Enabling 6. Democratising 7. Growing organism

There are 3 crucial concepts to be born in mind: The web is extremely flexible facilitating the broadcast of material – of all kinds (written, audio, moving images –wami ) Thus encouraging the creation of “ wami programmes” by individuals who are prepared to experiment and develop new ways in which the medium might be used for communicationeducation purposes Enabling individuals and groups of individuals to create “programmes” data bases accessed on demand in a synergistically growing organism

Japan The Japanese Government, through the JST (Japanese Science and Technology Agency), inaugurated a pilot Science Channel in September 1998 Six hours of Science Programmes Saturday 10 am - 4 pm Repeated Sunday 10 am - 4 pm From 2001 the Channel will broadcast every day VEGA is working to create a similar initiative in the UK

Vega has pioneered a new concept in scientific debate on TV All participants should actually GM Foods Part 2 understand the subject!

vega presentation. ppt

GM Foods – Safe? Lord Jenkin Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology: “I watched with complete fascination. It was by far the best discussion of the issues that I have seen or heard”

Financial Times 16 th August 2000 “The most enthralling programme I saw on television last week – in fact I have seen nothing so fascinating for months – was called The Next Big Thing: Nanotechnology” Vega OU co-production for BBC 2

Vega aims to encourage the Government to put high speed internet access into every school

Strands • Science Discussions (The Next Big Thing) • Scientific Lectures • The Young Scientist’s Day (Snapshots) • The Science Archive • Reflections on Science Workshops • Science workshops for very young children

vega presentation. ppt

The Vega Science Trust www. vega. org. uk vega@sussex. ac. uk 44 1273 678726

The Science Night 3 hours every Thursday night - BBC 2/OU 00. 30 - 3. 30 (after midnight!) Audience 100, 000 – 300, 000 VEGA/OU co-productions

The Vega Team

Gill Watson Manager

Chris Ewels Web. Wiz

Jon Hare Vega’s scientist in the Rough

The Vega Team

Public Appreciation and Understanding of Science and Engineering

Science consists of three facets • The store of knowledge • The application of knowledge • Methods of discovery

www. vega. org. uk Click on Need DSL or T 1 connection

I Make and broadcast SET programmes Vega has made 45 and broadcast 35 on BBC 2 II Inaugurate a SET Night on TV OPEN SCIENCE has now started III Start a channel devoted to SET “TV-SET” IV Catalyse the development of a SET Web “IN-SET”

The Science Night Programme Strands The Next Big Thing (Science Forum) Snapshots The Revolutionaries of Science

Snapshots A Vega initiative with Screenhouse Productions* for 1 “Open Science” on BBC 2* 2 Internet Educational Broadcasting 3 and BBC On. Line “Local Heroes” is a Sreenhouse Production *10 x 15’ TV programmes

Create new science programmes 5 New Formats Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews Sciencelink database Database now has 20 links eg Chem Heritage etc Streaming e. Science programmes GM Food debate TV broadcast Archive 45 programmes broadcast on BBC 2 45 Archival programmes

New programme initiatives 5 New Formats Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews Sciencelink database Database now has 20 links eg Chem Heritage etc Streaming e. Science programmes GM Food debate TV broadcast Archive 45 programmes broadcast on BBC 2 45 Archival programmes

New Science initiatives Sciencelink database Lectures 20 links Workshops Chem Heritage Discussions Interviews Snapshots Streaming e. Science GM Food debate The Nexr Big Thing TV Science broadcast Science Archive BBC 2/OU 45 programmes Science Night

VEGA New science programmes Lectures Workshops Discussions Interviews Scince. Light Sciencelink database Build up many more links, international Streaming e. Science All Vega programmes to be made accessible on line TV broadcasting Continue to catalyse terrestrial TV initiatves Archive creation 4 Build up a major Vega archive

VEGA Streaming e. Sciencelink database GM Debate 20 links, 10 UK 10 international Vega excerpts New science programmes TV broadcasting Archive programmes 35 direct Lectures - 12 RI, 2 RS 40 programmes 2 indirect 1 Workshop 4 Masterclasses 9 Reflections 11 (10) Discussions 4 Interviews 10 snapshots 3 Science Archive

VEGA Streaming e. Sciencelink database GM Debate 20 links, 10 UK 10 international Vega excerpts New science programmes TV broadcasting Archive programmes 35 direct Lectures - 12 RI, 2 RS 40 programmes 2 indirect 1 Workshop 4 Masterclasses 9 Reflections 11 (10) Discussions 4 Interviews 10 snapshots 3 Science Archive

PHASE I PHASE III Make and broadcast SET programmes Vega has made 45 and broadcast 35 on BBC 2 Inaugurate a SET Night on TV OPEN SCIENCE has now started Start a channel devoted to SET “TV-SET” PHASE IV Catalyse the development of a SET Web “IN-SET”

Vega Internet Aim Network of science programme websites Campaign for sponsorship and support from Universities, Government and research based Industries

Royal Institution Discourses (1 hr) VRI 1 The Origin of Life : John Maynard Smith VRI 2 The Chemistry of Interstellar Space : William Klemperer VRI 3 C 60, Buckminsterfullerene, the Celestial Sphere that Fell to Earth : Harold Kroto VRI 4 Electron Waves Unveil the Microcosmos : Akira Tonomura VRI 5 Nuclear Power Plant Safety - What’s the Problem? John Collier VRI 6 Science and Fine Art : David Bomford VRI 7 Tick, Tick Pulsating Star : How we wonder what you are : Jocelyn Bell Burnell VRI 8 Self-Assembly: Nature’s Way to do it : Kuniaki Nagayama VRI 9 Carbon Nanotubes: The Tiniest Man-made Tubes : Sumio Iijima VRI 10 The Epidemic of Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in the UK Roy Anderson VHS Copies of all our programmes are available

Vega Science Programmes Reflections on Science (1 hr) Nuts and Bolts of the Mind, On the Air, There Ain’t Nothing Nowhere, How to be Right and Wrong, In the Oceans How X-rays cracked the structure of DNA Electricity, Magnetism and the body Creativity and computers Chemistry; Architecture of the Microcosmos Susan Greenfield Mike Garrett David Miller Sir John Cornforth Jacqui Mc. Glade Amand Lucas Tony Barker Margaret Boden Harold Kroto Science Masterclasses (1/2 hr) States of Matter, Life in Space, Bernal & the Social Function of Science Flight in Birds and Aeroplanes, John Murrell Helen Sharman Chris Freeman John Maynard Smith

Financial Times 16 th August 2000 “If opting for a Reithian 4 -network scheme is the only way to get back to a service with serious current affairs, proper arts coverage and programmes at reasonable times about such matters as nanotechnology, then so be it”

The Science Night A Second Revolution in Education Now anyone can create programmes and broadcast them on the internet so that everyone has access to them The media no longer has control of information and so the Internet has democratised broadcasting and given birth to a second revolution in education

Shortlisted Chemical Industries Association Presidents award: 1998, 1999 “Prix Leonardo” 2000

Financial Times 16 th August 2000 “The Building Blocks of the BBC” A (Vega)/OU programme causes Christopher Dunkley to rethink his views on the corporation’s plans to stream its TV programmes

Financial Times 16 th August 2000 “The Building Blocks of the BBC” “However, I have not changed hats. The point is that this programme was made by the Open University (and Vega!!!) and shown on BBC 2 at 12. 30 at night. It will have been seen by only a tiny handful of viewers”

GM Foods Part 1

Production Style The young scientists and engineers featured will be ‘letting us in’ on their lives, recorded in ‘fly-on-the-wall’ style They will speak directly to us, explaining what they are trying to do from their personal viewpoint Importantly, they will help us to understand how science works and why they find it so engrossing Personal stories, ideas and ambitions are important and will give the programmes shape

Who/what will be featured? The all-round expertise needed by a young university chemistry lecturer conducting research, teaching tutorials, giving seminars and carrying out administrative roles The medical challenge needed to uncover the genetic basis of illness The problem solving ability needed by a young CERN physicist to tune a detector for highest sensitivity The genius needed to win the Formula 1 championship resides as much in the mechanical engineering as the driving skills of Michael Schumacher The imagination needed by a heating engineer to combine green energetics with aesthetic architectural design as well as a satisfying working environment in a modern hi-tech buliding

The Purpose of the Series The main purpose of Snapshots is to inform school students and potential university students, who are contemplating studying science and taking it up as a profession, about the world of ‘real’ science Our belief is that if school pupils and others knew more about the everyday world of science, more would choose it as a career and thus our programmes are aimed at reversing the recent trend away from the sciences As well as the key transmission slot on BBC 2, Snapshots will be made available to schools and others on video and eventually on DVD and by broadband streaming

In his book “A Healing Family” Oe Kenzaburo writes about his disabled son Hikari: “Sitting nearby with a book, listening to his piano lessons, I can feel the best, most human things in his character finding lively and fluent expression… I feel in awe of the richness of his inner life. Yet this is a life that, were it not for music, would have remained hidden, would have been utterly unknown to me, to my wife, and Hikari’s younger brother and sister. ” A Healing Family Kenzaburo Oe Illustrated by Yukari Oe

Recently, at a conference to bring the Arts and the Sciences together, I was the scientist speaker among musicians, artists, architects, poets, writers, dancers, performers etc… A young Women got up to say – “Are you not missing the point - As Science reveals more-and-more of the way things work it destroys the beauty and mystery of the Universe” The most depressing aspect of this truly stupid comment was the fact the audience applauded her. I asked – “Why did you applaud? ”

I was once asked by a young student how to win a Nobel Prize. My answer was that I was very satisfied with and proud of my achievements before we made our great discovery and never thought about the Nobel Prize nor dreamed of winning it. All I can say is - do not dream of winning prizes. Apply yourself to any activity that really interests YOU and that YOU enjoy. Do it as hard and as well as you can and never give up and try not to let anyone down. You will then find that, in general, you will have achieved more than others whom you might think are cleverer or smarter or more able than you. They will not achieve more because they have not the passion or the determination to create that you have. Your creation is your real prize - If you win a prize that will be a bonus.

The Public is oblivious to the debt it owes to Science and Engineering The public is ill served by TV which is driven entirely by advertising and as a result we are fed a complete diet of progammes chosen entirely for their entertainment value and for their zero educational content. TV programmes are the equivalent of Hello and OK magazines. This is unsatisfactory and perhaps also very dangerous in a world dominated by society’s blindly voracious appetite for the benefits of Science and Engineering

Turns out it’s not enough to have invented the car, the bomb, fluorescent lighting, aluminium, and BSE Not enough to have convinced us that animals have no emotions Having identified genes, they now get to patent them They’ve paved the way for total annihilation of the planet! No; Scientists want something more: they want us to buy their silly popular science books and spend our last precious moments of earthly existence reading them Lucy Ellmann The Guardian 1999

There are several layers of beauty in the physical and natural worlds They lie underneath the obvious one that we see with our unaided eyes or even through the most powerful microscope. The abstract beauty and elegant symbolism of these hidden layers can be appreciated using elegant mathematical language We find that we can uncover the intricate patterns which describe the beautiful world of atoms and particles of light (photons) and the way light and matter interact

In this presentation we shall explore many aspects of these hidden elegant worlds which add further to our sense of wonder and uncover ubiquitous patterns which permeate all aspects of: Nature The Physical World The Arts Architecture Engineering We seek to add new dimensions to our intellectual experience and our understanding of the complex meaning of culture in the 21 st Century

Susan Greenfield – the new director of the Royal Institution - on seeing herself in a magazine: “Perhaps one automatically thinks that one is going to look like Naomi Cambell and of course I didn’t. I looked like a dumpy middle-aged scientist” As if she could ever look lik e a scientist let alone a dumpy middle-aged one (!!!) Newspaper interviewer - Sabine Durrant

Real Scientific education is much more about this third aspect than about the first two Intellectual catharsis in science involves the voyage of discovery which often requires real struggle in understanding by the scientists who actually made the breakthrough

Consequently, we (and the media) must realise that professional programme makers are unlikely to have real expertise in advanced SET areas and thus more problems in understanding them and, more importantly, appreciating them than professional scientists