Science and technology providing solutions to global challenges - Interactive teaching resources for Key STage 3 and 4 and Post 16 students
Lead Research Organisation:
We The Curious Limited
Department Name: Learning
Abstract
The STFC Futures programme provides a rich and exciting context to engage students with frontier science and technology research, through exploring how skills and technology originally developed to address fundamental research questions are providing solutions to complex challenges faced by society today.
Organisations
| Title | Science in a different light video resources |
| Description | 'Science In A Different Light' is a collection of videos and activities that aims to answer that question. These free resources are designed to be used by teachers and students to discuss, debate, and reflect on some of the key areas of contemporary scientific research in the UK, and meet the people behind the science. There are case studies and videos, animations and downloadable activities. The resources can be used from year 7 to post-16. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2015 |
| Impact | The entire series of 12 videos has had 2,700 views on on the At-Bristol Youtube channel, which has over 16,400 subscribers worldwide. Jim Al Khalili introduced one of the videos and tweeted about the films to his 80,000 Twitter followers. Teachers using the resources said that it was important that the researchers featured in the film were young so that students could relate to them and that there were female role models. The teachers felt that the films were a good source of cutting edge science. They also felt that teenagers were very likely to watch short films like this in their own time. Having a high profile presenter like Jim Al Khalili was engaging for students and teachers. |
| URL | http://www.scienceinadifferentlight.org |
| Description | We produced 10 videos featuring STFC researchers, and 2 animated videos narrated by Jim Al-Khalili. The videos are hosted on the At-Bristol YouTube channel and feature on their own website www.scienceinadifferentlight.org |
| Exploitation Route | Continued use of videos by teachers, students, researchers and other public audiences. |
| Sectors | Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.scienceinadifferentlight.org |
| Description | Videos and resources featuring STFC researchers produced through the project were used by secondary teachers and their students. A small number of Secondary science teachers were questioned in February 2016 (either via an online questionnaire or a semi-structured interview) about the resources. All were experienced teachers with 5 to 10 years' experience and taught Physics as their main subject. They generally used videos quite often in lessons and liked to refer to current science where possible. They had each shown a selection of the films to a variety of Year 7 to 13 classes. None had used the additional resources on the website, but most indicated that they would be quite likely to in the future. They all thought those activities would be easy to incorporate into a lesson plan and simple to use. Overall the resources were described as Creative, Engaging, Relevant, High Quality, Interesting. Most videos were considered relevant or very relevant to classroom teaching, although this was somewhat dependent on which GSCE or A-Level specification the school followed, or what any particular topic a class was learning about at a given time. The teachers felt that the films were most effective in generating interest when introducing a new topic or piece of practical work, but also valuable for reinforcing learning and adding context. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Science in a different light video resources |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | 'Science In A Different Light' is a collection of videos and activities. These free resources are designed to be used by teachers and students to discuss, debate, and reflect on some of the key areas of contemporary scientific research in the UK, and meet the people behind the science. These films showcase cutting edge STFC science and scientists, incorporating quirky animations, interesting investigations and real science. For students, the topics were interesting and made school science relevant and engaging by linking it to real world applications and problem solving. Teachers we followed up with had used the resources with c120 year 7 to 13 classes. The teachers felt the films were most effective in generating interest when introducing a new topic or piece of practical work, but also valuable for reinforcing learning and adding context. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.scienceinadifferentllight.org |