Case Study: Biology Outreach Day

Project Description

Chris Tan and Andreas Leidenroth developed an outreach day to offer a more comprehensive insight into their research around brain tumours and muscular dystrophy, respectively. This emerged due to their earlier experiences at the Nottingham Science Fair and training in outreach activities with the university. Both had found that their short presentations did not seem to be enough for their audiences, who were keen to learn more about Chris and Andreas’ actual research.

Aiming to be more ambitious the PhD students organised an outreach day for A-level students, based around their actual research and the experiments they conduct.

Students began the day with an introductory talk on paediatric brain tumours given by Chris which was followed by an hour laboratory practical. After a short break, Andreas presented his talk on muscular dystrophy, which was again followed by an hour practical. These practical sessions were followed by a lab tour and shortened lecture.

Each of the practical’s utilised techniques that are regularly used in research. These included cell microscopy, cell lysis, DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction, and gel electrophoresis.

Purpose

• To give sixth-form students the opportunity to experience a general research environment, whilst also learning about specific techniques and their applications.
• To provide the students with experience of the university environment.
• Allow the researchers to develop their Public Engagement skills- be more ambitious.

Results/Outcomes

What worked well

The school

Chris and Andreas planned to take 20 students (10 each) yet due to the interest from the school rather than only allow 20 students from a class of 30 they recruited another researcher to help with the day- enabling all of the class to attend, and ensuring those who may have been hardest to reach attended.

The ‘Pitch’

For the PhD students the most challenging and rewarding aspect of the day was ensuring the ‘pitch’ was right for communicating their research to the A-level students, as they were particularly concerned not to oversimplify their subjects.

This worked well for the PhD students, who were able to learn a lot from the experience. Rather than overly adapting their research, they chose to talk for 10 minutes about the aspects which really interested them and had caught their attention during lectures. In doing so the students were able to convey their passion and interest in the subjects. It also encouraged Chris and Andreas to be more flexible in their approach, to ensure their research became accessible to all, with particular regards to language- avoiding jargon or ensuring they were explaining terms clearly which is continuing to be a highly useful skill following the event.

The lab practical

This was seen to be the most successful aspect of the day, focussing on the experience of working in the laboratory and carrying out more complex experiments than could be accessed through the school, including the use of stem cells for example. Moreover, it was the more informal part of the day enabling students able to work at their own pace through a series of mini experiments. Crucially, each did not rely on another- so if mistakes were made or concentration was lacking for one experiment the students could still participate in the next.

Evaluation

Feedback from the students and teachers suggests they all found the day interesting and fun:

“An excellent day.  Interactive throughout and a great opportunity for the students to use techniques and equipment not normally available to them”

“Fantastic day. Thank you to all for the hard work.”

“Excellent day. Informative and enjoyable. Very positive feedback from kids.”

“The lecture at the end was very good - we especially like the Harry Potter reference. Everyone was extremely helpful”

What didn't work well

The tour.

It was difficult to make 15 students hear at all times and there was a lot of walking for a small return. We were too keen to impose what we would find interesting on them. Next time we would ask a few A-level students whether they would enjoy the activities we were going to run before developing them.

Resources Required

The outreach day included a range of basic laboratory equipment and was based in a large teaching laboratory. Overall, laboratory reagents cost less than £50 for the whole activity. We invited a university lecturer to speak and also used our contacts to take the students on a tour around several labs of interest.