This weekend, a group of students and staff from De Montfort University head to Indore in Madya Pradesh, in India, to build washrooms and work with communities to learn about the challenges they face. I can’t deny that I’m a little jealous that I’m not on this trip but I do hold a sense of excitement that this project is actually happening. The students on the trip will be involved in the building of up to four washrooms in schools that have requested help. The work will be done in partnership with pupils from Daly College Indore who asked for DMU’s support having learned about the work of DMU Square Mile through our ongoing education partnership. Both DMU Square Mile and the student committee at Daly College share very similar values around working together with communities to seek solutions to problems. Continue reading “Public engagement blog: Project in India will transform education for hundreds of children”
Month: February 2015
Public Engagement blog: Citizen Science as an approach to community problem-solving
There’s nothing like a couple of beers to get the conversation going. Unfortunately I mixed a couple of bottles of Berliner Kindl with research and started searching twitter for Citizen Science references. I ended up “chatting”, tweeting or whatever, to @johnagallo about Citizen Science. During the conversation I foolishly agreed to add my Opinions and Perspectives to his wiki-page for the concept of Place-based Citizen Science. So here goes. All I can do at this stage is accept the opportunity and underline that my research into this area is in its early stages. I discovered Citizen Science searching for something else. I was actually looking for studies of communities as co-creators of knowledge. Citizen Science fits that idea effectively. I was also looking at ideas where communities engaged in research are not taken for granted. Continue reading “Public Engagement blog: Citizen Science as an approach to community problem-solving”
