| Initiatives &mdash Back to School |
| Sunday, 17 April 2005 | |
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Lucy Adam goes back to the classroom to inspire the next generation of scientists For the school child, the word scientist tends to conjure up images of mad, test-tube-waving old men whose bubbling cauldrons may contain the elixir of life or the ability to reduce the world to dust. In an effort to counter such opinions, the scientific research councils are keen to involve PhD students in Researchers in Residence (RinR), a scheme to encourage interaction between children and genuine researchers. RinR involves putting real researchers, preferably young trendy specimens, into classrooms to speak to students about their research. It is hoped that such exchanges will break down stereotypes and so inspire the future generation of scientists. Before a RinR placement, volunteers attend a training day; mine took place at
A major challenge was deciding what I wanted the class to learn from my talks. I was careful to remember that not having prior knowledge of a subject doesn’t mean the person is stupid, and recalled my exasperation at speakers who used too simplistic a tone for my liking. I found it vital to make talks visually interesting and to maximise my interaction with the children. The students were happy to have any sort of distraction from their normal timetable and really liked the practical elements. I enjoyed the RinR experience and it made an interesting change to the lab routine. Oh, to be back in the day when you were told to “pick up the beaker and pour carefully…” Lucy Adam is a PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry |
For my RinR placement, I decided to return to my former | < Prev |
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