Using Big Data to address critical issues in our towns and communities
W5's partnership aim with Market Development Association is to provide co-designed programming and resources for young people, building sustained and beneficial collaboration across the community
Inclusive Outcome Areas: Social connection, Agency & ownership, Possible selves, Developing skills
W5 partnered with Market Development Association (MDA), an organisation established to promote the wellbeing of residents living in the Markets Area of South Belfast. The results from a community survey conducted in 2018 by MDA showed that the people of the Markets felt they were being denied their right to an education, with a quarter (24%) having no qualifications, rising to 62% when the Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency (NISRA) defined ‘low qualifications’ are also included. This picture is further compounded by the fact that over half of residents (57%) cannot afford to access further or higher education, ensuring they can never escape the ‘poverty trap.’
W5 has been developing a relationship with MDA over the past 12 months which has included facilitating workshops for young people on site and within the community. The partnership’s aim was to provide co-designed programming and resources for young people in these areas, building sustained and beneficial collaboration across all aspects of this community. W5 worked with young people aged 8-14 years old in exploring how technology can be used as a tool to address critical issues in sustainability in towns and cities, particularly around making them inclusive, safe and resilient. The project used satellites as the focus of STFC science bringing together coding, big data and how they are used to make observations and allowed students to include engaging media (satellite imagery) on their websites. Big data is a concept that is mentioned in the media but through this programme the W5 team hoped to demystify the concept, and make the science and technology behind it interesting, relevant and most importantly fun and engaging for the young people involved.
“The facilitators made sure that every child had the time and space they needed to learn. At the end of the last session they all reported how fun it had been and want the MDA to offer more science based activities for them outside of school.” – Community partner, Market Development Association
Firstly, W5 ran a co-development session at the centre looking at the Explore Your Universe show and also the topic of satellite and how they are used with the children from the Market Development Association regular meet up. After covering some of the topics W5 provided pizza and discussed ideas for the future of the project with the students asking them to design posters on the topics they had covered that evening. The second stage was a coding workshop that took place across two days the following weekend, where the children started to make their own websites, with several other activities built in to break up the day. Having a full day with the group helped the team build stronger relationships with the students, especially more than a typical one-hour session focussed solely on content. The core activity of the programme involved designing a three-page website. Through this process, themes related to Big Data in STFC science were discussed including:
- The WhoWhatWhereWhenWhy of STFC Big Data
- How Big Data is used in STFC Facilities
- Focus on Satellites - Remote sensing and control
- Encourage the integration of satellite data in web pages
The final part of their delivery was meant to be a celebratory event at the centre where W5 would invite the families to join the students and provide them with a certificate for the work that they did during their time at the centre. At the time of the exit interview this event had been postponed until July and we are awaiting feedback on what took place.
"One of the biggest positive outcomes was the idea that people saw that the skills would be useful to them in the future. So they're reflecting on their own future and thinking about where they're going to be and that they could get a job in big data in the future if they wanted to" - W5 Project Lead
Please see below the Explore Your Universe: Valuing Inclusion report by Jen DeWitt and Sophie Bartlett. This report delves into the findings from the grant programme and how effective the 6 inclusive outcome areas were.