I'm a Scientist blog · Inspiring science dialogue for schools

I’m a Scientist March 2010 FAQs for teachers

February 4, 2010 in IAS event by SophiaC | No comments

I’m getting a lot of requests from teachers for more info about the next event, so I thought I should put up the answers here and save people writing to me. Not that I mind people writing to me, I hasten to add, but hopefully this will save time all round.

When is the event?

Teacher registration closes: 9th Feb – we will let everyone know that day if they have been selected
Scientist registration closes: 19th Feb – we will let everyone know that day if they have been selected
Event begins: March 15th
Event ends: March 26th

The event lasts for two weeks. The first week is ‘getting to know the scientists’ week, the second week is chucking them off week:-D. We have evictions almost every day in week two, with the winner in each zone being announced on the Friday.

Where is the event?

It’s online! You can take part from anywhere with an internet connection. Your students don’t need to go anywhere.

When do the students talk to the scientists?

Students interact with the scientists in two ways:

Sending scientists questions can happen at any time (students can even log in at home. Yes, we moderate the questions…).

Live chats are booked by the teacher for the time that suits them. We are very happy for chats to be at lunch time or after school (e.g. if you are taking part with the science club). Scientists, of course, have their own jobs to do so won’t be able to make every chat. The important thing is that the students get to talk to some scientists and (hopefully) realise they are normal people, and possibly even quite nice.

What age groups is it suitable for?

In the pilot we had a post-16 zone and two pre-16 zones. The classes in the pre-16 zones were mostly year 9s, with some year 10s and 11s (S2-S4 in Scotland). The post-16 classes included A Level, AS level, BTEC and Higher classes. All of these students got a lot out of taking part.

We produce three sets of supporting resources

Post-16
Pre-16 foundation
Pre-16 extension

The resources will probably be too advanced for younger groups, but the format of the event itself is very flexible. Because students ask the questions they want to, they can take part whatever their level. Our sister event, I’m a Councillor, Get me out of Here! often has primary schools taking part and they really love it.

However, I’m a Scientist has mainly been designed to support How Science Works (HSW) for GCSE and above. If there’s enough interest in it we might run a version for younger students in the future.

If you want to have a look at them, the teaching materials from the pilot are here. This may help you to see whether they would be suitable for your students. We will be making some minor changes, but mainly the resources will be the same.

Can my Scottish/Irish/Welsh school take part?

Yes! Scottish and Welsh schools have taken part in the pilot and Northern Irish schools have taken part in I’m a Councillor, our sister event. We are also happy for schools in the Republic of Ireland to apply. As long as you feel it will help with your curriculum then you are very welcome.

Can my SEN pupils take part?

Yes! Oak Lodge Special school took part in the pilot event and found it worthwhile, here is a case study about their experience. The supporting resources will not be geared towards your pupils, which may cause you extra work, sorry. We hope to be able to produce specialized resources for SEN at some point, but we don’t have the resource to do it at the moment.

How do I register?

Fill in this form

You will then get sent a confirmation email and you need to click the link in it to confirm. If the email hasn’t arrived in a few minutes then check your spam folder as some of them have been going in there.

You haven’t answered my question!

Sorry. There is more info about the event and what’s involved for teachers here. If you still have a question, please email me (or put it in the comments below). But please make your question specific! I’ve got several emails saying ‘please send me more info’ and it’s hard to know what they want me to tell them. There is really a lot of info on the website already…

I’m a Scientist 2010 Registration open

January 26, 2010 in IAS event by SophiaC | 1 comment

This is a weird moment. I can’t quite believe I’m actually doing it. I am now declaring registrations open for the first full scale I’m a Scientist event!

We are ready to hear from classes and scientists who want to take part in I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! 2010.

Teachers should register here.

Scientists should register here.

Getting us this far has taken a large proportion of my professional life for the last three years. Too large a part, Mr McCracken would say. It’s also taken loads of work from dozens of other people – the lovely (and long-suffering) teachers panel, all the previous participants, the people who’ve worked with us and the many people who’ve supported us.

I’m proud of what we’ve done. Thank you everyone. The event this year is going to be amazing. But I tell you what, if I’d known what hard work it was all going to be, I might have kept my mouth shut when I had that bright idea, all those years ago.

We are making a lot of improvements to the event this year, building on the things like live chats that we know really work. We think we’ll be making the site easier to use, more interactive, more personalised, but also more thought-provoking. Come and join in!

Timetable for March 2010 event

9th Feb: Teacher registration closes
19th Feb: Scientist registration closes
March 15th: Event begins
March 26th: Event ends

More info

Hear from Professor Peter Styring, one of our previous participants…

…Or read more about what’s involved

For scientists

For teachers

Or you can register here.

If you simply want updates without registering to take part then give us your email address below:

Registrations for this year’s I’m a Scientist opening very soon

January 19, 2010 in IAS event by SophiaC | No comments

This is just a quick post to keep you all in the loop. My pre-publicity has obviously been too successful and I keep being contacted by people who want more info about taking part in the event this year!

We will be running two I’m a Scientist events this year (details below). If everything goes to plan we will open registrations on Friday this week (22nd Jan).

March event | 15th-26th | 5 zones | 25 scientists | 100 classes

June event | 14th – 25th | 20 zone | 100 scientists | 400 classes

If you just can’t wait to let us know you want to take part, then feel free to email me (sophia@gallomanor.com), but it will just mean I send you an email on Friday telling you how to register:-). There’s more info about the event here, but, of course, if you’ve got more questions then get in touch.

Happy New Year and let’s get cracking on 2010!

January 6, 2010 in General by SophiaC | No comments

Image by Przemyslaw Idzkiewicz.

And I hope all my fellow science geeks in the Northern hemisphere had a pleasant Winter Solstice. (Summer solstice wishes, of course, to our Antipodean readers). I am certainly relieved now the sun is coming back… And I hope you all had a great Christmas, Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or other midwinter festival of your choice.

2010 so far…

As you all know, this is going to be a big year for us, now that we have the funding to roll out I’m a Scientist on a much bigger scale. We’ve started the year with a lot of excitement, as we are recruiting a new member of staff to help us cope. I’ve been shortlisting all week (please, teachers, tell your students to never, ever, send someone a file called ‘My CV’. When you get dozens of them the renaming gets very tedious). It’s been really difficult choosing from some very strong candidates but I think everyone on our shortlist would do a great job for us and we are looking forward to interviewing them.

I would like to record here (for Shane-the-boss’s benefit), that I am the event producer who never sleeps! I spent New Year in a big cottage in Scarborough with a group of old friends and, with the help of some New Year’s Eve tequila, have persuaded a public health consultant from Norwich PCT, and a medical physicist from UCLH that they would LOVE to take part in I’m a Scientist.

If you don’t want to be strong-armed into any involvement with youth engagement events, I strongly advise you never to talk to me.

Immediate plans

This week I shall be at the ASE conference on Friday and on Saturday.

Have you seen this woman?

I look like this picture, only less haggard:-/ If you see me, say hello! I’ll hopefully be talking to lots of people about I’m a Scientist and getting lots more people signed up for the event, or the debate kits, or both!

Next week, back in the office, where one of my priorities will be coming up with a plan to keep the blog updated more often. I was horrified to notice today how long ago my last post was… Another priority will be keeping warm in the poorly-insulated office of balticness. Happily my Mum bought me thermal undies for Christmas. Bless her.

Longer term plans

Our plans for the year are to run two I’m a Scientist events, one smallish scale one in March, to test out the new website (which is being built as we speak!) and then a bigger scale one in June.

March event | 15th-26th | 5 zones | 25 scientists | 100 classes

June event | 14th – 25th | 20 zone | 100 scientists | 400 classes

If you are a scientist or a teacher who wants to get involved in either (or even both!) then get in touch.

And finally…

As a cheering little story, here’s a link that made me laugh yesterday. “Locations of Ancient Woolworths Stores follow Precise Geometrical Pattern”. Matt Parker, a mathematician at Queen Mary, University of London has done a great job here of pointing out the flaws in a ridiculous Daily Mail ‘Stone Age satnav’ story by applying the same methodology to a different set of data. Which might be a great way for you to get a class thinking critically about data analysis. Have fun:-)

I’m a Scientist gets funding!

November 18, 2009 in IAS event by SophiaC | 1 comment

Our I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! event has been awarded a grant of £209,000 by the Wellcome Trust, so that we can roll it out nationally over the next two years. Hallelujah!

Yay! Time to celebrate

Long bit of waffle about how this came to pass

Long time readers will remember that we ran a pilot of the event in June 2008, funded by Wellcome. We then ran a second event in March 2009, funded by us, with assistance from Bristol University. These events went really well. As you can see from the evaluation reports, they got students really engaged with science, changed students views of science and scientists and were memorable and exciting learning opportunities.

Since then we have been chasing the funding to roll the event out bigger and better and give the same great learning experience to thousands more students. It’s been a frustrating experience – so many people have said ‘It’s a great idea, but we don’t have any money to give you’.

In February we applied for a Wellcome Trust Society Award. We got though the first round. We submitted a more in-depth application. We got the reviewers comments, which were mainly brilliant, “This is one of the most imaginative ideas that I have come across in 30 years of working in this field” particularly sticks in my mind, natch. We responded to the comments. And then, last Wednesday we had to go and present to the committee, at Wellcome’s Headquarters in London.

It must be said, I did not enjoy the experience. Imagine, three years of work, on something you completely believe in, all riding on one 20 minute presentation. I kept having this dread that there would be something we’d forgotten – like in one of those dreams where you are sitting an exam but it all goes wrong in some crazy dream-like way. “Oh no, we were supposed to bring a kangaroo butler! Where can we get a kangaroo and a dinner jacket in the next five minutes?”

My heart was in my mouth from the moment I woke up. I know that I know the event, the feedback and our plans inside out. But sometimes you feel like you know far too much about something to explain it or to answer questions with any sort of clarity.

I tried desperately, in my over-earnest way, to get across just how wonderful the event is, and answer some pretty harsh questions clearly and persuasively. Shane did a great job of explaining his bit (even if he was going extremely fast by the end). But the committee looked unconvinced.

We walked out of there, straight into the nearest pub, convinced that we hadn’t persuaded them. After getting the train home to Bristol I frogmarched my flatmates to another pub and made them listen to me moaning all evening about how we’d blown it. And then on Thursday we got the best phone call ever. The committee had been very impressed by the idea and were giving us the money!

Apparently the committee deliberately put on serious faces so they don’t give anyone false hope. I have to say I have now just about forgiven them for this. In light of the £209,000.

Just how much do I love our participants?

Loads! The students, teachers and scientists who’ve taken part have all been such fun to work with, done so much with the event, and helped us so much with their input, support and advice over the last two years. But now I love them even more.

We especially wanted to get across to the committee just how much people get out of taking part. So we emailed the scientists and teachers asking if they could record something to show to the committee.

Loads of them did. Even though for many it was 18 months since they’d taken part, their enthusiasm shone through. I’m sure that was very persuasive with the committee. Cheers everyone! I will look into the possibility of putting up some of the clips. If the students from Heanor Gate Science College don’t make you laugh then you haven’t got a heart.

What we’ll do with the money

You can read lots more about the money stuff and what this means for the company here. (For some strange reason my boss sets more store by this side of things, whereas I just care about getting kids thinking. I realise this is one of my many flaws as a private sector employee.) But basically, over the next two years we can run the event with:-

50 zones altogether, which means

250 scientists
1,000 classes
20,000 students

All (students, scientists and teachers) breaking down barriers, learning new skills and changing the way they think about each other. I can’t wait!

And best of all, we take on a full-time admin assistant and I need never address another envelope. Is that shallow of me?

*Photo credit Tony Hisgett

Cleaned out! – Our second Debate Kit (Are we too clean?) all gone…

November 2, 2009 in Uncategorized by SophiaC | 1 comment

… But you can download copies from here. Sorry for the terrible pun.

Again we’ve been amazed by the response. We had so many orders within the first week that since then we’ve restricted it to one copy per teacher. But really, you only need one copy to run the activity with a class, so no-one should be too inconvenienced. You may want to laminate the cards for durability in teenage hands.

Thanks to everyone who’s ordered one. And all who’ve given us fantastic feedback on them. It does give me a warm glow to know that so many teachers and colleagues in the field see what we are trying to do with them, and think they really work!

A quick note on how this kit differs from the last one

Teachers gave us some great feedback on the first kit (thanks everyone!), but when we asked if there was anything they didn’t like they raised the following issues:-

Some felt the cards could be a little more durable

We have therefore printed this second set on heavier stock. There’s a limit to what we can do within the budget though, so I would recommend laminating the cards if you are concerned about this.

Most liked the design but some suggested they should be more colourful

We have jazzed up the design of the cards slightly but not made too many changes.

A couple of teachers suggested the cartoons were a bit young for the intended age group and suggested more sophisticated ones or photos

For various reasons we decided not to go with photos, however, we have gone for more ‘adult’ looking cartoons for the characters. (Not adult in the X rated sense…)

One teacher pointed out that characters might raise personal issues for some students (i.e. one character was a cancer patient), or for younger students (the teacher reported that her year 8 students were embarrassed by having to play a lesbian couple), and that flagging these possibilities to teachers would be helpful.

We recognise that this was an oversight on our part, as busy teachers may not read all the cards before the activity and spot potential issues. With the cancer patient clearly hearing about this character might upset some students due to their personal circumstances. There may be occasions when teachers feel it is appropriate to miss out this character. If you also miss out one of the ‘for’ characters too this should not affect the overall activity.

Student awkwardness, on the other hand, isn’t a reason to avoid topics, but it may need to be recognised and perhaps addressed. We have made sure with this kit that we have flagged potential issues of any sort to teachers with a ‘guidance note’ so that they can be aware.

We think teachers themselves will be the best people to judge what their class (or individual students) might find difficult and how to handle that. Therefore we haven’t tried to tell teachers what they should do. But we will definitely in future flag all potential difficulties so they can be prepared.

A couple of teachers asked for more background info and perhaps definitions of terms used

We have expanded the background info for teachers, and divided this section up more clearly. However, we haven’t gone overboard – part of the point of the format is that a lot of information about the topic comes out during the course of the debate, from different characters played by students and not from the teacher.

We believe this makes it easier for students to assimilate as they go along and changes the classroom dynamic. As one teacher said about the IVF kit, “It made such a difference that we were finding things out together. And far more memorable for the kids.”

Some teachers felt the language used was too advanced

We’ve considered this, however, far more teachers said they thought it was pitched at just the right level. It’s not possible to write resources that will work for every age group and ability level. Sorry. Each character card has only approximately 100 words of text, if one or two of these are difficult then hopefully this can be an opportunity to expand the students’ vocabulary.

And finally…

I hope this is useful to you all. I will put more analysis of the teacher feedback up on the site later this month. I hope you all enjoy using the kits and they get your students talking as much as the first ones did.

Pre-orders now open for the new debate kit!

October 7, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | No comments

It’s gone to the printers. It’s on it’s way. The second, ever, I’m a Scientist Debate Kit is GO!

The topic is ‘Are we too clean?’ which was suggested by a teacher called Laura, on this blog, on September 9th. You then voted and picked ‘Are we too clean?’ as the most wanted topic. Your wish is our command, so now we’ve developed the kit for you and sent it to the printers. The first batch will be ready to ship on 19th October.

You can pre-order a kit here, but don’t do that if you are already on our list! We’ve sent you an email and you can confirm or change your order with a click.

Now we’ve made the kit I want to find out who Laura is, and send her the first ceremonial copy. If you are Laura, or know who she is, then please get in touch!

(And now that I think about it, I’m pretty impressed that we entirely crowdsourced the choosing of the topic. I don’t know if any other educational publishers (I guess we are educational publishers?) have tried this before. If you fancy giving it a go, we used twitter, the blog and email to solicit suggestions and then online votes. This included us consulting all the teachers who’d used the first kit – so our entire user base. It worked great!)

Topic for next debate kit: Are we too clean?

September 23, 2009 in Debate kits, Uncategorized by SophiaC | 1 comment

Is this man too clean?

I’m surprised, as so many teachers have suggested stem cells to me over the last few months, whenever I’ve talked to them about the debate kits. I was sure that was going to come out top. But ‘Are we too clean?’ snuck in at the last minute, and wiped the floor with all comers, if you’ll pardon a very weak pun.

I was once at a gig where a member of the audience shouted out the name of an obscure, early hit, as a request. The singer laughed into his microphone and said, ‘It’s all very well for you, you’ve only got to remember the title, I’ve got to remember the chords and all the words to the ******* thing!’

I feel a bit like that – it’s all very well for you lot, you just have to vote, now I have to research and write the damn thing! The more I think about it, the more it seems like a very big topic to do justice to in one debate kit…

I guess the areas I mentioned in the poll all need to go in there (i.e. antibiotics/antibacterial cleaners/resistant bacteria/allergies). Let me know in the comments if there is anything you particularly want the kit to cover, curriculum links you think are important, and so on.

Wish me luck!

(photo credit Attila Malarik)

VOTE for what the next debate kit will be on

September 15, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | 7 comments

You all gave us lots of great suggestions of topics for the next kit. Thanks!

Here’s the list of topics – I think nearly all of them would make fascinating debates and raise lots of interesting issues.

Now YOU decide which one we use for the next kit.

Please vote in our poll below.

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I’ve put the topics in alphabetical order, rather than popularity of the suggestion, so it’s a bit fairer. There were several more great topics suggested but the list was just too unwieldy with all of them.

Help us decide the topic for the next debate kit!

September 3, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | 26 comments

1,500 of you have had the first, IVF, debate kit and you’ve been giving us great feedback on them. We are now gearing up to produce the second kit and we’d like your help choosing the topic, because who better than teachers to tell us what teachers want?

The suggested topics so far are:-

Stem cells
Creationism
Homeopathy
MMR
Cannabis (legalisation and/or medical use)

Have you got any other bright ideas? Topics must be biomedical as we are being funded by the lovely Wellcome Trust. Are there topics you’d really like debating resources on but can’t find anything suitable? Then let us know in the comments section! We’ll collect suggestions over the next week or so, and then let everybody vote on the shortlist.

Timetable:-

3rd – 11th Sept

Gathering suggestions

14th Sept

Put up topic shortlist for voting

21st Sept

Topic chosen

21st Sept-19th Oct

Researching, developing, testing and producing kit number 2

19th Oct

Posting out next kit