Mobile volunteering app to help raise awareness of careers in science and maths

Orange’s Do Some Good mobile volunteering iPhone app launched on 31 March. The Science Council has been working with the mobile phone company on the Future Morph ‘Hidden Science’ action, which will enable the public to have their burning science questions answered directly by scientists.

The Science Council will be highlighting the scientists that answer the questions in order to show the huge variety of jobs available within science. They hope the action will help to overcome common misconceptions about working with science; challenge gender stereotyping within this area; and highlight the importance of STEM skills and their relevance to everyday life.

The result of an Orange competition to be involved, the app will invite questions related to 12 monthly themes including Water, Medical Science, Food, Sport, Travel & Tourism, Fashion & Textiles, Earth Science, Imagining Different Tomorrows, Disaster, Wealth & Luxury, Space, and Computers & IT. All the answered questions will be posted on the Future Morph website and the Science Council will be developing supporting materials for each topic. Future Morph is the Science Council’s website designed to provide information for young people, their parents and teachers about careers available from studying science and maths. It is designed to show that studying science, technology, engineering or maths beyond the age of 16 isn’t just a one track road to a life in a lab – the skills and knowledge you gain are valuable in almost any career and will make you very employable.

The submitted questions will help guide the development of teaching resources so that teachers can contextualise their lessons and effectively raise careers awareness with the potential for year-on-year impact. The Science Council wants to show that science and engineering have a huge impact on your lives and really are all around you.

The Science Council hopes that teachers will download the app and allow students to submit questions as a classroom activity and then view their answers online once they have been answered by the scientists.

For more information on the app or for details of how to download it, go to the Orange website or search for it on the iTunes App Store. Be one of the first to download the new app and volunteer your thoughts to help inspire the next generation of scientists in their future careers.