What’s Going On Here?
Curious.Earth has received sponsorship from The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) to run a series of climate-science social media posts targeting audiences who aren’t typically exposed to inspirational scientific content.
What Does This Mean?
Science is often considered less accessible by, and for, people from certain backgrounds. Relatively few girls, children from families with less advantaged circumstances, and children from some ethnic backgrounds study non-compulsory science subjects at upper secondary school (ages 16-18) and at university.
The RSC offers a number of grant programmes in order to address this imbalance. Back in February, founders Conrad & Paul applied for one of these grants on the premise that we would create a series of climate science posts on Instagram, targeting specific demographic audiences using the platform’s ad targeting capabilities.
The aim of the pilot is to inspire underrepresented groups to consider the sciences as something that is for ALL and importantly a potential career or study path. The end goal being a more diverse group of future scientists in academia, business and government.
Why Should We Care?
Equal opportunities is something that we are all advocates for.
But inequality is not only unjust, but stifles our scientific progress and is slowing climate science down.
Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. In order to overcome the myriad hurdles in front of us, we need a diverse set of scientists who understand these problems.
“You cannot make the best decisions if they are being taken by a homogenous group. And there’s lots of data to show this”
Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu
Let’s look at some of the data Professor Uchegbu is referring to:
- London companies with diverse management are more likely to introduce product innovations when compared to homogeneous top teams. Economic & Social Research Council
- Ethnically diverse mock juries are less likely to make factual errors when discussing a case. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Ethnically diverse stock pricing teams were 58% more likely to price stocks correctly, leading to less pricing bubbles. PNAS
- 589 companies in 12 countries found that those in the top 25% for ethnic diversity were 33% more lively to be profitable. 2018 McKinsey report
In summary:
Diversity = broader thinking = greater problem solving
Diversity = less following the crowd = less mistakes
From a more selfish level, the fact that an established organisation like the RSC believes in Curious.Earth is a huge testament to the work we are doing and being honest, we wouldn’t still be doing this if it wasn’t for the support of all the readers.
Be Curious!
It’s still early days in our research for this project but we have already stumbled across a few little gems.
TigerStemm – The Inclusion Group for Equity in Research in STEMM have some great resources:
Khan Academy – a free science platform,perfect for the parents out there.
Read the research from the RSC: Is Chemistry accessible for all?
If you work in science or are interested in supporting us with this project, or just want to send us some information, please reply to this message or write to us at: hello@curious.earth.
