ABSTRACT
Science festivals are a popular means for the science community to raise public awareness, to promote dialogue between science and society, and to encourage young people to select science as a career. From the community’s perspective, attending a science festival can be a form of edutainment as it can be an entertaining, educational, enlightening, and absorbing leisure activity. This chapter considers science festivals within the theory of valuable leisure. The valuable leisure theory suggests that successful leisure activities can contribute to human development through six elements, namely, the enhancement of an individual’s capabilities, the promotion of their wellbeing, the empowerment of the individual, the encouragement of conviviality among participants, the support of an individual’s values, and the protection of a region’s cultural diversity. The chapter uses the British Science Festival as a case study to explore the event as a valuable leisure experience and found that the creative and innovative activities and experiences via the edutainment elements provided demonstrated an approach that aligned with the key aspects of the valuable leisure experience.
