Futurum Careers is five years old!
In September 2018, co-founders Brett Langenberg and Karen Lindsay published the first Futurum magazine: Social Mobility and the Sciences. That issue marked the launch of Futurum Careers and, five years on, this is our 22nd. Join us as we look back over the years and celebrate the milestones that have contributed to Futurum’s ongoing success.
Global reach
We have published 420 sets of education resources and 22 issues of the Futurum Careers magazine.
Our educational resources are being used by teachers all over the world. Since 2019, when we started recording resource downloads, our handouts have been downloaded 28,205 times from the Futurum Careers website, 30,343 from TES and 29,198 times from Teachers Pay Teachers. That’s a total of 87,746 downloads!
Our resources are also freely available on Scientix, a European Commission-funded initiative that aims to support collaboration among STEM teachers, education researchers and policymakers; the European Geosciences Union and LabXchange, a global science classroom created at Harvard University and supported by the Amgen Foundation.
We have had 93 teacher reviews, 90 of which have been rated 4 and 5 stars.
The three most downloaded articles on Teachers Pay Teachers are:
Living with drought, floods and climate change
Microplastic pollution: How bad is it and what can we do to solve it?
Differentiated learning
As part of our commitment to widen our reach and support differentiated learning, we started producing:
PowerPoints, which focus on careers insights and include reflective Talking Points, in 2019.
Animations, which bring the research stories to life, in 2020.
Podcasts, which feature researchers talking candidly about their personal experiences, in 2022.
Digital footprint
Our social media channels are growing at a steady pace.
Followers: 6,321
75,000 average views per month
Followers: 1,819
Followers: 1,628
YouTube
Views: 149,318 (since January 22)
Parlez-vous français?
We have published 72 sets of resources in languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Zulu, Swahili, Bengali, Arabic and Mandarin, allowing our educational resources to be accessed by students around the world and to be used as resources for teaching foreign languages.
Award-winning resources
In 2021, Futurum Careers was awarded an Innovating Careers Champion award by the UK Government’s Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) and listed in its resource directory. Set up by the UK Government in 2015, CEC is a national body for careers education in England. The CEC Resource Directory is carefully curated, and its aim is to help schools, colleges and employers find the ‘trusted, high-quality resources they need to make a difference’.
In 2022, Scientix and STEM School Label invited teachers across Europe to vote for the most useful resource in the Scientix repository and have their favourite resource translated into 37 languages. Four resources were selected in total, two of which were from Futurum Careers:
- Using AI and computer science as a force for social good
- The ocean’s storage system: How plankton influences climate change
In September 2023, we were shortlisted for the Open Education Significant Impact Award. This award recognises high-quality, innovative, open teaching and learning resources that have significantly impacted accessibility, learning and social change.
Events and talks
We took part in:
Bath Taps into Science Festival, an award-winning family science fair located in Bath, UK.
SparkED Organization’s annual conference, which aims to equip youth with the skills and resources they need to make informed career decisions.
A Scientix webinar for educators, introducing Futurum’s resources and its aims.
International Centre for STEM Education (ICSE)’s #togetherforscience campaign, the aim of which was to show that we are stronger together and that science and cooperation matter.
A webinar at Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, USA, introducing students to ‘The importance of writing in STEM’.
The 2023 European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) conference, which brings together stakeholders in science education research.
Looking forward
Futurum Careers is committed to sharing knowledge, communicating research stories and playing our part in STEM and SHAPE communities around the world. In the near future, we will be talking to bioscience students at the University of Bath, UK, about science communication.
What will the next five years bring? We look forward to continuing to produce high- quality resources that help researchers to inspire the next generation, teachers to deliver a broadened curriculum, and students to aspire to fulfilling and rewarding careers. We will report back in 2028!