Meet Professor SPaRC, an Outreach Mascot Igniting a Love for Neuroscience in School Children

One of the most popular ideas was to cultivate our external activities and become a more active member of the local community. To help facilitate this, an Outreach and Public Relations Working Group was formed, led by Susan Duty, Co-Head of Wolfson SPaRC, to enable us to brainstorm our ideas further. The discussions from the Working Group ultimately led to the idea of pursuing a project that focused on visiting Key Stage 2 schools in London to teach them about science and our areas of research.

Selecting a younger age group (ages 6-11), we felt that it would be fun to introduce the students to a memorable mascot. Susan was aware of my interests in character-based illustration and encouraged me to take on the role of designing Professor SPaRC and creating a range of branded merchandise including a Professor SPaRC badge, keyrings, and workbooks. In addition, we purchased a range of anatomical models to bring with us into the classroom and provide an additional tactile approach to learning. We also published a comic book to help introduce the basic concepts of the brain and the nervous system. This was written in-house, led by myself and illustrated professionally by Rebecca Burgess, a talented artist who has experience working with our target audience.

We chose to launch the project during Science Week (7-16 March 2025) as this is usually a period when schools are especially interested in running science-themed events for their students. So far, we have launched our project in four schools throughout London.

Our working group designed the outreach sessions which were delivered as hour-long interactive workshops introducing the simple functions of the brain and the role of nerves and neurons. Mignon Van Der Watt, a PhD student in our department, delivered the scripted sessions using PowerPoint slides to accompany her talk and keep the children engaged. The interactive components of the sessions included hands-on activities such as building paper brain hats to describe various brain functions, making neuron models out of pipe cleaners, and explaining synaptic transmission by blowing soap bubbles (always a crowd pleaser!)

Reflecting on the success of our school visits this year, I feel we have strengthened our skillsets and better understand how to pitch and engage effectively with our local community via outreach initiatives. As long as we have the goodwill and availability of our staff, we are planning to visit more schools next year. Similarly, we hope to develop and expand on the comic. We are currently in the planning stages of creating new chapters as I write this blog post, so it will be exciting to see where Professor SPaRC and Axon’s adventures take us next!

Feedback from educators who have worked with us has been very positive, with many commenting on how we have been able to engage with their students in a refreshing way. For instance, not many Key Stage 2 students had ever touched an anatomical model before or even met a professional research scientist, but bringing these experiences to the classroom gives students the confidence to engage in a positive way.

We have a limited number of comics available to read. The majority are currently being distributed to the schools we visited and we have also shared a number of copies with staff at King’s who have engaged with the project. Once a few more chapters have been created (the goal is to create a complete book) we will be in a better position to consider digital publishing to reach even wider audiences.

For any researchers who are interested in developing and applying their science communication skills and engaging with the local community, I would strongly recommend pursuing the opportunity as I found it to be an incredibly enriching experience. Seeing the enthusiasm and positive reactions from the children during our outreach sessions was particularly rewarding. By developing a fun classroom session that engages students both scientifically and creatively, you can help play a part in sparking their curiosity that could well lead to creating the next generation of researchers!

For more information about this project, please email me at christopher.bottoms@kcl.ac.uk