Bringing Youth Voices to Science and the Parliament 2023

On 22nd November, we brought young people’s voices to the annual Science and the Parliament Event organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Youth STEM 2030 community members Alice, Poppy and Olivia reflect on their experiences of attending and running the Youth STEM 2030 exhibition stand at the event…

In November, we were part of a group of 6 Youth STEM 2030 community members who attended and hosted an exhibition stand at the 2023 Science and the Parliament Event.  This annual event brings together key stakeholders and policy makers while showcasing a wide array of tremendous organisations paving the way in STEM across Scotland.  This year’s Science and the Parliament event was themed around STEM Education, which allowed us to delve into the role Youth STEM 2030 plays in advancing sustainability education through empowering youth as STEM changemakers, and the importance of youth voices in STEM education.  By participating in the event, we aimed to raise awareness of Youth STEM 2030’s work and how other organisations could implement youth voice in their sectors, thus enabling and empowering a diverse range of young people to get involved in STEM. 

During the event, we had the opportunity to hear from a range of speakers, who are each making change in STEM education in Scotland, including in schools, nurseries, colleges and universities.  We found that there are shortcomings of the current curriculum in Scotland, but also got to hear about potential solutions to the problems and visions for the future of STEM education during the panel sessions.

At breaktimes, the conversations on STEM education continued at our exhibition stand. We led the design process for our exhibition stand, and running it on the day was a phenomenal experience, as it gave us the opportunity to talk to people face to face about our work at Youth STEM 2030, share our views and answer any questions they had.  It also allowed us to answer any questions that they had and it was great to visibly showcase our work, including our journal, Youth STEM Matters. We were able to donate a copy of the Youth STEM Matters Issue 1 print edition to each of the young people in attendance, empowering them to use their STEM interest to make a difference by getting involved with our organisation.  

Interacting with people at the stand enabled us to learn more about the ways that other organisations were planning to increase youth involvement in their work, and the importance of intergenerational collaboration. As a result of the stand, we have gained many more connections with these companies, which will enable us to get more involved with their plans for the future as well as helping us to get young people on a bigger stage. 

During the event, we also had the opportunity to listen to a panel discussion where Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) discussed their plans and priorities for the Scottish education system.  This was very insightful, and gave us a clearer idea of the kinds of areas that young peoples’ voices could be particularly valuable in.  We were fortunate to be able to ask the MSPs a question about how they are including a diverse range of young people’s voices and opinions when making important decisions about our futures, but it was clear that there was still lots of progress to be made to meaningfully involve the opinions of young people in STEM education.  We hope our constructive challenge allowed the MSPs to think more about how they can include youth voices in their future work.  

One of the highlights of the event was speaking to Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP, who is the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education. She took the time to speak to us about our views on STEM education at our exhibition stand, and also gave our work a shoutout on stage during the MSPs panel session as an example of young people’s voices in STEM which could shape the Scottish education system!

The event concluded with an awards presentation, which recognised the top performing students in SQA exams for STEM subjects.  Although great to see their achievements recognised, if we could change one thing about the event, we think it could be even more valuable to have more diversity in the awards.  We believe STEM isn’t just about your grades, so in future we would also hope to see the most improved/supportive/creative individuals in STEM education in Scotland being recognised.

Overall, we really enjoyed our day at Science and the Parliament, learned a lot about STEM education in Scotland, and are proud to have represented young people’s voices in these important discussions. At the next event we hope to see a more diverse range of young people invited to attend, especially at different stages in their STEM journeys, so we can continue raise youth voices in STEM!

Article Written By: Alice Cameron, Poppy Fairbairn & Olivia Johnson.