Member's Zone

Trainees's Zone

University of Glamorgan
Centre for Astronomy and Science Education (CASE)

Key Personnel

Mark Brake: Professor, Science Communication, Director of CASE.
Founder Member NASA Astrobiology Institute science communication group.

Rhodri Evans: Senior Lecturer, Director, UK Pilbara Astrobiology Project.

Martin Griffiths: Senior Lecturer, RoCCoTO Project Manager.
Founder Member NASA Astrobiology Institute science communication group.

Steven Harris: Senior Lecturer, MSc Communicating Science, CASE Research Developer.

Neil Hook: RoCCoTO Researcher, Associate Lecturer, CASE.

Christopher Chilvers: CASE Visiting Research Fellow, Assistant Professor in the History of Technology Department, The Technical Knowledge Centre of Denmark, BT Connected Earth Senior Research Fellow at the Science Museum, London.

Institutional profile

The University of Glamorgan The Centre for Astronomy and Science Education (CASE) has an outstanding reputation for quality and innovation. Offering the internationally recognised BSc Science: Fiction & Culture, the BSc in Astrobiology as well as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Astronomy and Science Communication. Glamorgan are only the second institution in the UK to offer an undergraduate degree in the field of science communication, namely BSc Science and Science Communication which utilizes both our experience in communicating science to a wide variety of audiences and the ENSCOT science communication modules. All of our courses are offered on a full or part time basis both on campus and in the community. Our community work is also internationally exceptional both in breadth and scope, perhaps uniquely so for a University science department; our science education curriculum has had thousands of lifelong learners in dozens of local study centres.
All members of the department are involved in developing and teaching various aspects of the courses as well as developing activities to promote science to wider audiences, including Starlab planetarium presentations to over 5000 people over the last twelve months.
The RoCCoTO (Robotic Cyberspace Community Telescope and Observatory) Project, is Wales’ first web-based public access robotic telescope for lifelong learners. RoCCoTO will be used to run a series of internationally significant accredited and non-accredited training programmes for lifelong learners. We have also acted as science communication consultants to BBC2 , London Science , the Discovery Channel, BBC4, BBC Wales, UKTV, the Museum of Natural History of New, the British Association and the British Council.

Selected Publications

Brake M, Hook N, Thornton R, Turnbull N, Williams K (2005) The Counterfactual Classroom Paper presented at the 26th Eaton Conference ‘Inventing the 21st Century: Many Worlds, Many Histories’ Seattle May 2005.
Brake M, Griffiths M (2005) Alien Worlds - Astrobiology & Public Outreach, NASA Astrobiology Institute conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, April 2005.
Brake M, Hook N, Thornton R, Turnbull N, Williams K (2004) Science Fiction as a Forum for Science. Paper presented at 2004 Theatres of Science Conference, University of Glamorgan, September 2004.
Brake M, Hook N, Thornton R, Turnbull N, Williams K (2004) Antithetical Scenarios: Science Fiction as Theatre. Theatres of Science Conference, Sept 2004.
Brake, M, Thornton, R, and Turnbull, N (2004) ‘What if . . . ?’: Science Fiction and PCST. PCST-8 Conference, Scientific Knowledge & Cultural Diversity, 3-6 June 2004 Barcelona, Spain.