Orbyts and Orbyts STAR: At the Heart of Great Science is Opportunity

Orbyts is a movement founded at UCL in 2015 and organised by STEM researchers and
teachers that creates inspirational partnerships between scientists and schools. By providing
school students with relatable science role models and supporting our students in leading
their own original science research projects, Orbyts helps them to defy the systemic biases
that are too often found in STEM and dispels the harmful stereotypes that have historically
prevented science from being more inclusive.
UK science education faces significant inclusivity, education and skills challenges. STEM
subjects, and particularly physics, suffer from a systemic lack of diversity created by long-
standing barriers to inclusion. Girls, Black students and students from low-income
backgrounds are highly under-represented at all levels of physics from GCSE onwards [1,2].
Less than 20% of post-16 physics students are girls [3] and students from the most deprived
backgrounds are 3 times less likely to take A level physics and 6 times less likely to achieve
the top grades than those from the highest income backgrounds [2].
The Orbyts ethos of providing regular engagements, inspirational role models and active
ownership of scientific research is proving to be transformative in tackling the issues
mentioned above and is profoundly shifting perceptions of science and who can be a
scientist. The evidence shows that it is particularly impactful for groups historically excluded
from science. For example, our partner schools report 100% increases in girls’ uptake of A-
level physics, following participation in Orbyts at GCSE. Since 2018, Orbyts has enabled 195+
UK school students to author scientific publications (10s of papers) and most of these
students are designated as being pupil premium (a metric that includes income deprivation).
See Fig. 1 for more relevant statistics regarding the engagement that Orbyts has had so far.

Since its conception, Orbyts has expanded significantly in line with our goals of reaching as
many underrepresented groups as possible. Orbyts hubs are now present outside of London
in Leicester and Northumbria and we have an international hub to support researchers in
other countries in running their own Orbyts projects. One such group that has frequently
been overlooked with respect to outreach opportunities is that of students suffering from
long term medical conditions. The unpredictability of such conditions can prevent these
students from engaging with science at the traditional school level whilst also having other
negative effects such as making it harder to maintain confidence in their intellectual abilities
and relationships with their peer group. This year we have piloted the Orbyts STAR (Students
Advancing Research) project in partnership with the hospital school at Great Ormond Street
Hospital to deliver a bespoke research project to their students. The project surrounds
characterising the variability of exoplanet host stars in preparation for the launch of the Ariel
mission in 2029 and is specifically tailored to allow for additional flexibility needs. In this talk
I will start by giving a general overview of the Orbyts programme and its structure and then
present some of the results from the STAR research project specifically.

References
[1] UK chemistry pipeline loses almost all of its BAME students after undergraduate
studies, Chemistry World, August 2020. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/uk-
chemistry-pipeline-loses-almost-all-of-its-black-asian-and-other-ethnic-minority-chemists-
after-undergraduate-studies/4012258.article
[2] Limit Less, Support young people to change the world, Institute of Physics Report,
October 2020. https://www.iop.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/IOP-Limit-Less-report-2020-
Nov.pdf
[3] Why not physics? A snapshot of girls’ uptake at A-level, Institute of Physics Report, May
2018. https://www.iop.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/why-not-physics.pdf