STEM – A look back at 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, we thought it would be a great time to update you on all things STEM for the Institute of Acoustics. 

By Anne Budd, Angela Lamacraft, Matt Muirhead and Vicky Wills

This year the STEM committee welcomed two new members in Jenny King and Rachel Bennett. Both have done a fantastic job in hitting the ground running with Jenny delivering the You’re Banned activity and writing about it for Acoustics Bulletin and Rachel leading the communications team for Project Reverb (more on that below). We are also grateful to the IOA for giving us a stand at Acoustics 2024 where we could advertise the work of the Committee and hand out quite a few Lottie dolls too! We hope you enjoy reading about everything we are up to below and, as always, if there is anything that you are interested in, please email us at STEM@ioa.org.uk

The WES Lottie Tour
The Women’s Engineering Society’s (WES) Lottie doll tour involves organisations borrowing a Lottie doll and taking photos of the doll doing their job – so a bit like work experience for the doll. The intention of the tour is to show young people what it is like to work in STEM careers and hopefully inspire them to work in these fields in the future. The IOA took part in the Lottie Tour in 2023, and it was so much fun that we are doing it again this year. Pictures and videos will be going live during Tomorrow’s Engineers Week (teweek.org.uk) from 11 to 15 November 2024. To follow what Lottie gets up to on Social Media, please follow #acousticianonamission #teweek24 and #weslottietour

Project Reverb
Project Reverb is our new STEM project, where we are bringing together as many people as we can to create a STEM community, improve our resources and reach more young people. So far, we have gathered together around 60 people onto the project, and have been working on our social media campaign for more volunteers, organising STEM Ambassador training (live on 13 November and then as a recording on the IOA website) and working on our resources, such as handouts and classroom activities. There is still a lot to do, with the end goal being to get many more acousticians into schools during British Science Week, which is 7 to 16 March 2025.

Springpod
The IOA virtual work experience is still ongoing on a rolling basis. It provides around 10 hours of free content for secondary school students to introduce them to the wide variety of careers in acoustics. We have had hundreds of students engaging with the course this year alone, with some excellent feedback. However, we are always looking for wider dissemination of the programme and any feedback on improvements that could be made, so please advertise it next time you are talking to young people https://www.springpod.com/ virtual-work-experience/acoustics-with-the-institute-of-acoustics/WEXP-00085

Above: The EnginEARing Section at Careers Hive in Edinburgh

Careers Hive and Edinburgh Science
From 28 October to 2 November Scottish Branch members once again volunteered to attend the Edinburgh Science Careers Hive at the National Museum of Scotland. Volunteers speak about their careers and experiences to S1-S3 high school pupils from Scotland to help them decide the path they will take through their Nationals and into STEM. The event is a fantastic opportunity to reach a huge number of pupils as well as to spend time with our professional peers across the STEM sectors in Scotland. The IOA has sponsored both the Careers Hive and acoustics-themed activities of the Edinburgh Science outreach programme, which visits participating primary schools across Scotland, since 2017. If you haven’t taken part so far then please consider joining the volunteers next year!

School competitions
The IOA Primary School Competition asked children to produce a piece of art based on somewhere with sounds they like. We received a wonderfully large number of entries this year with a great variety of sounds and artwork. The Secondary School Competition asked children to explore the connection between ecology and acoustics by using an app to find out what birds are present in three different soundscapes. The winners have already been presented with their awards and a full write up on the competition will be provided in a future Acoustics Bulletin article.

So as you can see, there is a lot going on and lots of things to get excited about for 2025. Please drop us an email if you would like to be involved at STEM@ioa.org.uk

Above: Lottie at St Oscar Romero School, doing the ‘You’re Banned’ STEM activity

Above: Lottie at the BS4142 Conference at Bletchley Park, testing out an enigma machine