Science Facilitation Upskilling for Researchers

An important component of the INSA program is communication and dissemination. To help meet these objectives, the INSA project includes amongst its collaborators the Les Petit.e.s Débrouillard.e.s d’Occitanie (APDOC), a French non-for-profit science popularisation organisation focused on facilitating the public to learn about science using hands on activities.

In addition to organising workshops with school children in Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya (see blogposts here and here), another objective of APDOC involvement in the INSA project is to train young researchers in science facilitation. It is hoped that this will enable the researchers to better communicate their own scientific research, as well as provide the skills and knowledge to share their passion for science, and nitrogen, with children, university students and the general public.

As part of this initiative, in November 2022, Adama Bakayoko, Julien Bahino and Venance Donnou, scientific researchers based in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin, had the opportunity to participate in an APDOC science facilitator training course. The course enabled the researchers to: understand the interest of science in an educational process, use scientific methods as a pedagogical approach, employ various educational tools (e.g. books, multimedia tools, experiments), design and evaluate a scientific animation project; and gain hands on experience animating and managing a group.

In the weeks following the course Adama, Julien and Venance participated in a range of APDOC events to further develop their newly-learnt scientific facilitation skills. The type of events varied widely, for example, the researchers helped animate a Do-It-Yourself café and a stand on environmentally friendly living. They also helped prepare material for, and participated in, a series of hands-on activities about trees, as part of a Nature Leisure Day at the Buzet forest, north-west of Toulouse.

All three researchers reported the secondment as being very enriching. An innovative and successful initiative!