The Abstract: March 2022
Welcome back to The Abstract - your monthly round up of all the behind-the-scenes news from Youth STEM Matters, our youth-led scientific journal.
March was an exciting time for Youth STEM Matters as we celebrated the organisation’s second anniversary, introduced the Volunteer Voice channel on our Slack workspace, and we’ve made it even easier for you to write an article for Youth STEM Matters!
Youth STEM Matters’ Second Birthday
We turned 2! Although we didn’t cut any cake to celebrate, Anne-Rosa Bilal wrote an impactful & thoughtful piece on the last 2 years at Youth STEM Matters from her perspective. Having been involved since the beginning as one of the journal’s Co-Founders, it’s a true ode to the experience of being a volunteer at Youth STEM Matters. Volunteers Poppy Bradley and Arushi Rastogi, Volunteer Team Alumni Éimear Stephenson, and author Jahnavi Giridhar have also shared their experiences in a series of impact articles - these will be shared very soon, so watch this space!
THANK YOU to the amazing Youth STEM Matters team and all the brilliant authors! Each one of you has played a key role in getting where we are today, and we can’t wait for what’s to come in the future!
Sharing Our Views - Volunteer Voice
As we continue to look at the Future of Volunteering, many volunteers have expressed they want to have more opportunities to share their views as well as the idea of having further workshops on different topics. Hence, we’ve got a brand new ‘Volunteer Voice’ channel in our Slack workspace - it’s designed to allow all members of the Volunteer Team to share their views and shape Youth STEM Matters to be the most impactful and inclusive platform for youth it can be!
The goal is to run workshops throughout the year on a variety of different topics, to find out what the volunteers think. The first session, held on 9th March, was used to let the Volunteer Team share their thoughts on what skill development opportunities they want and need. Here’s what the team thought of the workshop…
“I found the workshop really enjoyable because it allowed me to share my thoughts on how we could improve our skills. It was also a great opportunity to listen to what other volunteers thought and give a good idea on things I could do in my role to help support and develop other volunteers’ skills!”
“I enjoyed the workshop. I was asked questions I wouldn’t normally ask myself, which enabled me to do some much needed reflection.”
New Volunteer Team Members
The Youth STEM Matters volunteer team continues to grow with an additional 18 members from 7 countries, who have just finished their various team training sessions and are ready to join the team!
Here’s what they are looking forward to having joined the Youth STEM Matters Volunteer Team…
“Joining the Volunteer Team has made me feel as though there are so many new opportunities, areas of study, and skills to discover in my future with the organisation. I particularly enjoyed reading articles tailored to my subject interests and analysing them further to reach a deeper, more critical understanding!”
“I feel so lucky to finally be part of the Youth STEM Matters Volunteer Team, and during training I loved pushing my knowledge and working on topics I wasn’t so familiar with.”
“I am looking forward to developing my skills and gaining additional knowledge alongside like-minded individuals. The highlights of my training were learning about the peer review process since the information I learnt would be useful for a career in scientific research.”
“I look forward to not only reviewing papers but to also get the best out of each and every author, as well as collaborations and efforts to further improve Youth STEM Matters. My training was a huge learning curve, and I loved how our tasks were well explained including the examples.”
In addition, after an internal call for applications was made, we’ve found our new Physical Sciences Editor - Chloe Louise Cannon! Here’s what Chloe had to say about her new role…
“I’m really looking forward to starting the new role so I can feel even more involved in the journal! The most exciting part for me is the opportunity to meet and develop relationships with even more people, and work together to make the most of every article.”
Find an Idea to Write an Article for Youth STEM Matters
We know that coming up with ideas of what to write about can be tricky, but thanks to our new Article Ideas board, writing for Youth STEM Matters just got a whole lot easier! Each week, we’ll be updating it with fresh ideas of science communication article topics, from features, to interviews, to case studies, and more! Simply pick an idea from the board (or come up with your own), and submit your article within just 10 minutes! There’s so much to discuss within STEM and you could help shine a light on it, whether it’s a passion or just a newsworthy topic!
Volunteer of the Month
Congratulations to Anchita Shetty who is the Volunteer of the Month for March 2022!
Having been nominated by another member of the Volunteer Team, Anchita was recognised for her superb efforts during the recent Copy-Editor training. Through this training, Anchita has shown real growth as a Copy-Editor, including in areas she previously found more tricky, and her hard work to develop her skills during the past couple of months has not gone unnoticed.
Well done Anchita - it's great to see your hard work and determination pay off, and we can’t wait to see you put your skills into action to make our authors’ articles the best they can be!
“Being announced as the volunteer of the month was a massive shock to me, and it felt like an accomplishment because I never imagined that I could be one of them.”
