HOW to plan your event
Using the previous tool kit sections, you will have decided on a topic for your science café (WHAT), the experts that you need to invite (WHO), and chosen a location (WHERE). This section deals with promoting, running, and evaluating your event.
Promote the event
- Existing networks - Museums, botanic gardens, and zoos usually have very well established networks and these should be used to promote science café events amongst people already linked to the institution.
- New connections/networks - Members of the co-creation team should be thought of as valuable links to new networks. Through these representatives you can promote your events to new individuals, groups, and organisations.
- New connections/networks - Ask invited experts to spread the invitation in their associations and social networks.
- Media promotion - Use traditional (radio, newspapers, TV, etc.) and social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to promote your event.
- Link to exciting events - Link a science café to a well-established event, which has proven to attract visitors already.
- Word of mouth – Word of mouth (analog and digital) is still the most effective form of marketing. It is a helpful strategy to plan for a sequence of science cafés right from the start, as participants will inform their friends and social networks about them. Experience has shown that even if only few participants show up at the first science café numbers increased at the subsequent events.
- Start promoting your event early and maximize your activities in the final week before the science café takes place.
- Be aware that your event complies with national and European privacy policies when gathering contact details and compiling email invitation lists for future science cafés.
Offer engaging moments
Alongside short expert talks to stimulate discussion, which is the common approach to science café delivery, we recommend additional ice-breaker activities to promote a relaxed atmosphere and facilitate the interaction between experts and participants. These activities help to break down barriers and level the playing field.
Hands-on activities, such as cooking, doing experiments, observing living creatures, art and craft activities, games, provocative objects, interactive exhibits or short video clips, music, etc. have proven to be successful at BigPicnic science cafés.
Facilitation and hosting
In addition to your expert, you will need someone to host the event - introducing speakers, informing the audience about timings, health and safety issues, etc. Additionally, you will need someone to facilitate the discussion. This may be the same person or two different people. For facilitation, choose a person who can adapt well to the participants as one can never predict exactly what will happen. The facilitator must pay attention to group dynamics and has to intervene if particular people start to dominate the conversation.
Evaluate the event
Evaluation of your science café is an important step in continuing to hold successful science cafés. Evaluate each science café, so you can learn what worked and what did not and apply lessons learned to your next event.
There are different ways to collect information, which will help you to determine the outcomes of your science café and whether it was effective to achieve the goals you had in mind when planning it.
To get started you need to answer the following three questions:
- What are the most important goals you want to achieve?
- How can you tell if you have achieved these goals?
- What information do you have to collect to answer your evaluation question?
In the BigPicnic project, a Team-Based Inquiry approach was used. Team-Based Inquiry (TBI) is a practical approach to data collection and evaluation, built on a cycle of question, investigate, reflect, and improve. Evaluation often focuses on the impact of a project. TBI gives professionals the opportunity to also reflect on the process and practice development and is illustrated below.
Further information and a collection of evaluation tools can be found in the BigPicnic TBI Practitioner´s Manual.
The TBI diagram ist adapted from Pattison et al. (2014)
Evaluation approach
Thanks to the quiz, it was possible to gather information about our question: How profound is the publics’ knowledge of the relationship between pollinating insects and the food we eat?
Most participants underestimated the role of pollinators for the production of food crops.
93% of the participants knew about the link between apple juice and pollinators, 86% about the link between strawberry jam and pollinators.
However, the link was not obvious for other crops (e.g. coffee, chocolate, and margarine containing soy oil).
There were interesting discussions with participants who took a more holistic approach, arguing that the disappearance of pollinators would affect the whole ecosystem and therefore all crops.
Several beekeepers were present. They had a rather narrow view on the question, focusing on honeybees only and discussing the question based on what they observed with their own bees.
It isn’t always possible to find a consensus on the importance of insect pollination for a specific crop (National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Meise)
Ice breaker
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This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 710780.