Adventures in (geo)science communication: mapping outreach practices into university classrooms

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, STEM subjects have often been rigid in their teaching structure, creating barriers to education for students with more specific (or unrecognised) learning needs. Our STEM outreach course, Think Like A Scientist, has been running in a number of English prisons since 2019, and started in Canada and Australia over the past two years. Our students in prison often have diverse learning needs – a classroom often presents numerous barriers (sensory, communication, information processing, and regulation) which particularly impacts neurodivergent students (e.g., autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, etc.). In our teaching in prison, we have been conscious of creating different educational access points that are not solely reliant on rigid teaching structures.

Although our outreach programme is tailored to the restrictive prison environment, the application of its core principles are fundamental Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) practices that can be applied to university-level teaching and supervision. Here, we outline the choices we have made in prison education to increase educational engagement for those within the neurodivergent umbrella – and how these choices can map onto university teaching to widen participation for STEM students. Specifically, we will describe our university campus work in a few key areas: creating relatable science content for our geoscience student body, giving students a voice in their education, adding reflection activities, and fostering a classroom environment that is inclusive and accessible to all. Finally, we welcome an open discussion on potential best inclusive practices in the geosciences.