Science capital

And the focus is really on that hands-on interactive experience where you really get to learn about science phenomena through doing things yourself.

Beyond that, science centres and engaging with science centres and other informal science learning organisations and experiences like going to the zoo or national parks or even everyday experiences like cooking and gardening and tinkering can all lead and build on what is called your science capital.

which you can think of as all of the science-related knowledge and experiences and resources that you can build up over the course of your life and use that to exchange value in science-related spaces.

The Science Capital was first proposed by Louise Archer and her colleagues at King's College London in about 2015.

And since then, it's given researchers in science communication a really powerful tool for understanding why some people are more likely to end up in science-related study and careers than other people.

And we found that science capital is really strongly linked to someone's socioeconomic background and status and access to cultural capital.

So things like not only going to school, but also going to places like museums and science centres and that kind of extra learning that you do throughout your life that can help you more confidently navigate different spaces or fields.

Yeah, that's really interesting.