An exciting new project is underway at Winchester Science Centre that combines science and the arts to help connect children with nature. Our Charity has hired an artist to work in partnership with children and scientists. The project aims to create child-centred environmental experiences at the Science Centre using authentic voices from local children.
For the first time, we are embarking on a project that places children at the heart of the conversation. The child-led project, will see children from our brand-new Young Design Panel, share their thoughts, feelings and attitudes about the natural world and the nature crisis we are facing through art activities and collaborations.
Over the next six months, the Young Design Panel and the Charity will work together with scientists and artist, Milly Rolle, to explore a range of themes including soil, food production, light pollution, local species, the sound of biodiversity and accessibility. Through this multidisciplinary collaboration, they will work towards creating ideas and inspiration that will help expand the Science Centre’s content to focus on environmental science.
The children have already begun to use art to explore the natural landscape of Winchester Science Centre, located in the South Downs National Park. In their first workshop, guided by artist Milly Rolle, the Young Design Panel explored the differences between the nature found at the Science Centre and the nature found in the children’s local spaces like their homes or local parks. They also looked at the shapes and colours that can be found in nature from the clouds to leaves to flowers.
Milly Rolle said: “I am excited to work with Wonderseekers because of the core values that they have like curiosity, being inquisitive about the world and making science accessible to lots of people and combining art and science. My hope is that the children feel they can give something a try, to trust their intuition when they’re doing artwork. I want them to take away a feeling of I’m an artist too, we can all be artists. Also, to have fun and be silly with it. Silliness and play can lead to really productive outcomes”.
Ben Ward, Chief Executive of Wonderseekers, said: “This project is an exciting first step on our new seven-year strategy. We’re really keen to create child-centred experiences with children from development to delivery to launch. By using art to allow children to communicate we hope to give them a new way to express their thoughts and feelings and ultimately give us new insights into our audiences to help us develop our experiences for the future.”
The start of this new project comes ahead of Wonderseekers unveiling its masterplan, People and Planet Connected. The masterplan will set out how our Charity intends to deliver on organisational and sustainability strategies by 2030.
We interviewed Milly to find out how she feels about working on this project. Read what she had to say here.
