The Astronomy for Remote and Island Schools STEM Clubs Project (AfRIS STEM Clubs) is a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) funded public engagement project to establish and manage a mobile outreach team to support the provision of astronomy-related STEM Club activities to schools located in some of the UK’s more remote and island communities.

The objectives of the AfRIS STEM Clubs project are as follows:

• To re-establish and manage a small mobile outreach team to deliver STEM-related activities within schools in some of the more remote parts of the UK.
• To support 15 to 20 remote or island schools in running a STEM Club for pupils, through a combination of face-to-face visits, club leader training, online tutorials, and remote support.
• To trial different levels of support with different schools, to determine the most efficient or best practice model for future remote/island STEM Club provision.
• To group participating schools into 5 or 6 geographical clusters for logistical and financial reasons, with 3 or 4 primary and one secondary school in each cluster.
• Activities will be based around a recently created series of NSO STEM Club Booklets.
• To develop an extensive set of video tutorials to accompany the booklets.
• To use astronomy to enthuse students and teachers about the long-term study of STEM subjects as a prelude to a career in science, technology, or engineering.
• To create a detailed evaluation plan to monitor the short and medium-term impact of our repeat STEM-outreach interventions on the remote schools and communities we visit.
• To re-establish the online and social media presence of the AfRIS project.
• To encourage schools to create a staff/parent STEM Club lead, with post-project NSO support.
• To engage with LEA partners at an early stage to discuss future STEM Club provision based on our recommendations.

The project will start on 1st October 2022 and run for 24 months