Posted by Hedgehog under blog's category : Schools education

For two weeks this June I took part in the 'I'm a scientist...get me out of here 2011' competition at the Wellcome Trust. Okay, I know what you are thinking: a bunch of scientists armed with pipettes and a copy of the periodic table have been flung into the jungle with the nation's favourite Geordies, Ant and Dec...! Well not quite, but nearly as scary.

The jungle was a virtual one and the trials were science questions set by school students from across the UK. We had to answer the questions as best we could in chatrooms and live webchats and then, in true 'X-factor style' the students got to play the part of Simon Cowell and decide who stayed and who went. There were 115 of us at the start divided into 23 'zones', but only one left standing in each zone at the end.

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Posted by Sandpuppy under blog's category : Schools education

In his science lessons for Jamie’s Dream School on Channel 4, Lord Winston showed the dramatic (in more ways than one!) impact that using animals can have in science lessons. His lessons included mouse, rat and pig dissection and finally mock human surgery.

In his first lesson, Winston carefully explained that they were working towards an end goal: learning surgical techniques that are used on patients every day. There are plenty of online videos, models, even iPad apps to show the dissection of a rat but nothing with match up to the visceral, educational experience of dissecting one yourself.

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Posted by Devilfish under blog's category : Schools education

It is exactly 100 years since Francis Peyton Rous made the amazing discovery that cancer could be caused by a virus. His work has tansformed cancer research but who now remembers his name?

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Posted by Devilfish under blog's category : Schools education

The National Science Learning Centre in York is offering a fantastic opportunity to improve your science communication skills with a two-day course, free to UAR volunteers, on engagement with schools and young people.

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