This project is the brainchild of Sophia Collins, an award-winning public engagement specialist. She developed I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! (a highly successful project bringing together scientists and school students) and ran it for many years. In 2013 she had a baby and began using reusable nappies on her son. She was frustrated by the lack of clear, evidence-based information about reusables, so she had the idea of Nappy Science Gang.
The volunteers are over 600 parents (overwhelmingly mums, it must be said – but feel free to get involved dads, we don’t bite) who use reusable nappies on their children, and have questions they’d like to answer with science. They range from people with one science GCSE, to research scientists with PhDs in various areas. They are united by an interest in what we find out and a willingness to learn and experiment. The volunteers are all a member of the Nappy Science Gang facebook group, and were recruited from various other facebook groups related to reusable nappies.
Our project co-ordinators are Laura Hobbs, Greta Santagata and Ellen Young (and Rowan Martin has previously contributed to the project as a co-ordinator).
Our science advisors include Patrick Phillips, Rob Aldridge and Suzi Gage. Our external evaluator for the project is Karen Bultitude.
Partner organisations
We are funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society of Chemistry
Shirley Technologies will be providing our laboratory testing and services and Nappy Go Lucky who have provided the nappies we will be experimenting on, as well as a wealth of advice.
The wonderful I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! provide us with a chatroom for our discussions with experts. This has been a key part of the project. Letting volunteers ask questions directly to scientists and other experts makes such a difference. I would recommend anyone to see how they can incorporate some kind of direct chat with scientists into their public engagement project.
Contact Us
To contact us, you can write to or call Sophia Collins, Project Manager:
Email – sophia.e.collins@gmail.com
Phone – 07970 773791
Nappy Science Gang 
Hi,
I’m a microbiology student at Chester uni, I’ve been looking at running some bacterial tests on cloth nappies (various wash temperatures and sanitizer) in our lab at St Helens. Would I be of any use to you? I have the head of micro interested and ready to rock next September. All non gratis of course, genuinely interested in this and I can use the results for my dissertation.
Danielle
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Hi Danielle, that sounds brilliant and really useful. Would you like to have a chat on the phone about this? If you email me at sophia.e.collins[at]gmail.com we can arrange a time.
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