Reach the Unreached: a perspective for public outreach in Earth and space science

Abstract

Conducting public outreach activities for students and the general public has been an integral part of several research organizations. It is a way to communicate with common people to make them aware of the research work at any institution. However, the COVID-19 pandemic affected these activities. Even during the post-pandemic period, the response to public outreach programmes has been poor. To deal with this situation, an initiative called ‘Reach the Unreached’ has been implemented at the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), Navi Mumbai, which has helped boost participation in public outreach activities. This low-budget programme has been well-received by many schools. Moreover, it is found to be an effective way of reaching a large number of students. In this article, we share our post-COVID-19 experiences and information about different programmes implemented by IIG to reach a maximum number of people with basic concepts in the field of space science and geomagnetism, and their applications. The public outreach team of any institution must be energetic to adopt and implement different methods to attract and motivate young minds. The experience shared in this article will be useful to public outreach teams from other institutions.