A guest blog by Sophia Collins, producer of the on-line teen science event “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!”
“itz hometime but we want to stay and ask questions”
These are the words of a 14 year old student, at a school in inner-city London. The school has some of the poorest academic results in the school district, well below the national average. And yet a classroom science activity had the students so gripped that when the bell went for the end of the school day, they insisted on staying for another 15 minutes to ask more questions.
The students were having an MSN-style online chat with some scientists. They’d started with fairly simple questions, ‘How long have you been a scientist?’ and ‘Why is the sky blue?’. But then something happens – the immediacy of the chat format, the inventiveness of teenage brains, the unexpected experience of a grown-up seriously answering their questions – and the chat starts getting richer. You can see the ideas bouncing off each other and going in all directions. By the end of the chat this class had moved from a question about whether science could ever stop aging, to discussing what the world would be like if people didn’t die.
And there were all sorts of other random conversations along the way. Everything from favourite pop stars, to how blood circulates, to what it feels like if another scientist scoops your work. After another chat, one of my staff (a usually cynical young man) brought a tear to my eye by declaring it was “an honour to be associated with the event”. When I asked why, he said, “The kids are so excited, and they are asking questions I know I’ve never asked or even thought of…”
Live chats like this are part of the event I run, I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, which Andrew blogged so kindly about a couple of weeks ago. We were blown away the first time students insisted on staying after their lesson finished, “when normally they’ve got their coats on before the bell has finished ringing” as one teacher told us. After a while though we started taking it for granted, it happened so often.
As well as these live chats, students submit questions for the scientists to answer on our website. This gives an opportunity to go into more depth, and extend the conversation over days Feel free to have a browse, if you don’t mind getting distracted for the next couple of hours. We’re constantly amused, intrigued and impressed by the questions students ask, from “What is it about humans that led to us inventing science?” to “Do you think that robots will ever rule the earth?”.
One scientist told me that this was “the most science-related fun I’ve had in ages,” while a teacher emailed to tell me her class was splitting into fan clubs for the different scientists, “with the sort of devotion they’ve only had for pop stars up until now.”
Teenagers are notoriously the worst audience to engage, so what is it that gets this response from them? I’ve spent years working on this event format, and naturally I’ve got a few theories.
Doing it online makes it less intimidating and more intimate.
Before you all write in and complain, I’m not saying we should do away with face-to-face. I think that can be a great way of getting kids engaging with scientists. But do you remember people coming in to school to give talks when you were a teenager?
Who put their hands up to ask questions at the end? Usually, the clever kids who can think of questions the teacher will approve of. And possibly the naughty ones who want to be cheeky.
I’ll tell you who didn’t. Not the shy students. Not the ones who got lost five minutes into the talk and really would have liked to ask what the guy was actually talking about. Not the ordinary middling students who can’t think of a smart question but desperately want to know if it’s scary sometimes being a policemen or where astronauts go to pee. Doing it online makes it much easier for kids to ask the questions they actually want to ask, and then they can start getting interested.
Teenagers are actually desperate for the chance to talk to grown ups.
For many kids the only adults they ever get to talk to are their parents and their teachers. They are on the cusp of the big scary adult world, they really don’t know what it’s going to be like and they want people to answer their questions!
Once they realise these real live scientists are actually going to do this, those questions about the adult world start pouring out. “Do you get on with the people you work with?”, “Do you ever get bored at work?”, “How did you decide what to study at University?”.
I also think sometimes they can’t quite believe they’ll be able to pull off being a grown up (I’m 38, and I still have that doubt…). And becoming a scientist? Way too intimidating! Lots of teenagers are convinced that scientists are all Einstein-like geniuses, so they couldn’t become one themselves. When they realise, as one girl put it, that “scientists are just like normal people!” it’s a revelation. The scientists talk about their holidays, their pets, their favourite jokes and suddenly students can see that these are people like them, and they could grow up and be a scientist too.
And lastly, the true secret weapon…
Giving students some power engages them much more deeply.
The scientists are competing for a prize of £500 ($770) to communicate their work and the students are voting who gets it.
This makes the young people feel that they are being taken seriously, for once. Don’t we all get turned off things if we aren’t listened to and feel we don’t have a say? No-one wants to be lectured at, but that is what happens to teenagers all the time.
But it’s not just that they feel less ignored; giving students a vote and some money to allocate makes everything real – it’s not just an essay or a classroom debate about science ethics. It’s not an academic exercise. We’re saying, here’s some actual money – who do you think should get it?
To answer that question for themselves, students have to really think. And they raise all sorts of issues: How can we know what the outcome of research will be? How can we weigh one kind of knowledge against another? Imagine you had a medical advance that would save a small number of lives, how could you possibly weigh that against a different medical advance that improved the lives of a much bigger number of people? These are thorny issues in science funding and teenagers engage with them, because they are actually being asked to decide.
I’m not pretending that all the teenagers cast their vote for the highest of reasons. Some will vote for the scientist who likes the same band as them. Or whose joke made them laugh. Or who’s got the nicest photo. But I’m prepared to bet they still do that having thought more about complex science and society issues than they were probably going to otherwise. And it leaves them with a sense that these issues are something it’s possible for them to have a say about, so it’s worth them thinking about them.
We need a populace who can engage with science and engage in discussions about science. There are decisions that have to be made as a society, not by experts behind closed doors. Students who’ve cast their vote in I’m a Scientist feel that science is a thing they are part of. And that makes all the difference.
____________________
I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! was run in the UK for two weeks between March 15-26. Around 1,400 teenagers in 70 schools around the UK participated, probing and evaluating the work of 25 scientists through on-line questions, answers and chats. The next event in the UK is scheduled for June 14 – 25 2010. The event is kindly funded by medical research charity the Wellcome Trust, to promote public engagement with biomedicine. For more information on how to participate as a scientist, check here. For teachers, further information (including Creative Commons teaching resources which anyone can use) can be found here.
Sophia Collins is producer of the on-line teen science event “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!” and its sister event, “I’m a Councillor, Get me out of Here!” which gets teenagers engaged with local politics. Her background was in science communication, mainly in TV science shows, before getting involved with I’m a Councillor in 2004.
I REALLY love this, really great project. More more more please!
I must confess, reading Sophia’s piece last night brought a tear to my eye – it’s not as if these kids don’t want to talk about science, it’s that they are too intimidated usually to do so. The genius of I’m a Scientist is that it empowers teenagers to get involved without fear of seeming to make a fool of themselves – brilliant!
Would love to see something similar happening in the US
Interesting discussion and thanks for your insights. I’m a team leader at Scion, a Forest and Biomaterial based Crown Research Institute in New Zealand. We have been working alongside schools for a number of years in science education in two pilot programmes: Forests of Life and Science for Life.
We seek to encourage students to explore their own research questions within an authentic or real life context. Our interventions as scientists are: to excite the imaginations of students; and then to help support them through their experimental design and in drawing conclusions. We believe that inquiry approaches to science education, including the social construction of knowledge around those inquiries, may be very important stepping stones in building science literacy and understanding in our society. Students own their own research and our involvement as partners rather than experts, helps them to feel that their contribution is meaningful and valued. All inquiries are closed with a ‘so what?’ question in which we invite students to reflect on the outcomes of their science investigation. Some inquiries have worked well and others not so well, but the excitement that students get from working with science research organisations should never be underestimated …
Your project looks fantastic Tim. I think it must be so effective to get the students doing their own research – they’ll realise that in real experiments you don’t know what the outcome will be. And in a similar way to our project, I imagine they engage much more deeply because it’s *real*.
I’ll look out for more info!
Thanks both of you:-) I’m glad the event touches other people too, although I didn’t mean to make you cry…
I’m sure we’d be happy to run a US version!
Soph this is brilliant… congrats!
Thanks Andy, is that the Andy Long I know? If so, hello!
The results you are achieving are super! Here in Cork Ireland at Blackrock Castle Observatory, the Space for Science, we find similar enthusiasm in bringing scientists closer to curious minds both in real time at the Cork Science Cafe and online in live video links we do with schools and the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland California. There is a great eagerness for information and a healthy thirst for knowledge and teenagers seem far more confident in asking questions then we were back in the day of textbook discourse.
Thanks Clair. I hope that’s true about more confident teenagers, although I worry that they are more ghettoised than ever before in some ways.
BTW, taking part in I’m a Scientist is open to schools in the Republic of Ireland too, if any of the teachers you work with would like to register.
Excellent post and inspires me to ramp up the science dialog with my own teens.
Of your points, I think that it is only the adults that are apprehensive about on-line discussions and their effectiveness. Texting and electronic communication is second nature to our teens. Actually, it might me that dinner table face to face is second nature, texting is first. And, despite how we may be using it, they are extremely productive. All in it’s place and time.
And, everyone, not just teens
Kid’s already talk to grown ups all the time. I would say that what they are hungry for is to be spoken to as grown ups. They always seem to rise to the occasion and never disappoint when given the opportunity.
And finally, both adults and kids engage with given the power and opportunity.
Most of the communication problems we have with our children, stem from us talking down to them. Engaging them as adults (young, but adults) usually meets and exceeds everyone’s expectations.
Tim
Dear Sophia,
Your project seems fantastic, congratulations! I’m writing my MSc thesis and will be organizing a focus groups session this Wednesday with INESC Porto´s researchers (www.inescporto.pt) about how to engage young people with science (among other themes). Can you please send me a video or a leaflet about your project “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!”? It would be great for starting a debate.
Many thanks,
Sandra Pinto
(PR at Portuguese R&D institution INESC Porto)
Hi Sandra,
Yes, there are short films on the website – have sent you an email.
Soph
I ‘m in high school, and i just wanted to know that can we use wormholes to travel faster to other galaxies? I’m very eager to get any knowledge about astronomy. I hope someone’s there to help me. Will be waiting to get the answer. Well, thanks in advance….