What does a 9 year old know about neuroscience? What should they know about neuroscience? What would they find interesting about neuroscience? My friend and I sat for quite awhile pondering these questions after being asked by a primary school teacher to come along to her class.
They idea of working with small children when, like me, you've never really interacted with one, can seem daunting. But I must admit it was also exciting. Here was an opportunity not only to teach them something but to get them excited about science.
So we came up with a plan. I had recently worked with the Naked Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow on her show to secondary school pupils as part of the British Science Festival. As well as helping with her show, this gave me the opportunity to discuss with Hannah ways to interact with children and young adults, which had given me a few ideas.
I want to tell you what we came up with and delivered to the pupils. Maybe you can take away some ideas to use or maybe you could let me know what else we could have included.
Firstly we decided just talking "at" a 9 year old wouldn't work. They would probably loose interest pretty fast if we just rattled off facts about the nervous system to them. Instead we used questions. Things like, "What is your nervous system made of?" and "What does your nervous system use to send messages?". This allowed us to find out what they knew and then speak to them about these things, rather than just telling them.
In our lab we work on the interaction between nerve and muscle, so naturally, we have a TENS machine lying around. This isn't there because we need pain relief but because it gives gentle electrical impulses and so can be used to demonstrate that an electrical signal makes muscles contract. We used this in the classroom to do just that (on ourselves). This was met with the perfect response of "ooohhhhs" and "ahhhhhs" and a few "yuks".
In the second half of our time we had the children make a neuron out of card, glue, beads and pipe cleaners. While telling them how to add each part we asked and then described what each part was for. One pupil when asked "What do you think the nucleus is for?" gave the answer I was preparing to give - that the nucleus is a bit like the brain of the cell, telling the cell what it needs to do. Turns out, children are really smart!
We then asked the children if they had any questions for us. If you are a PhD student, postdoc or even a senior academic you will know that questions can be the hardest part in any presentation. However when presenting your research at a conference you have a sort of idea what questions may come up. Children are a different story. "Do you keep brains in jars?" , "Would I damage my neurons if I did this to my finger [he was bending and squeezing his finger with his other hand]" , "What sort of stuff is in your lab?" , "How clean do you have to be to go in the lab?".
We ended our visit by having a look at the pictures of scientists we had asked them to draw before our visit. As expected there were lots of bearded men in white coats. There were a few ladies and even a marine biologist (turns out to be one of the pupil's mum). When the teacher asked them whether they still thought scientists were all like their drawings, the answer was a definite no.
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| What does a 9 year old think a scientist looks like? |
Overall I really enjoyed being with the children in the classroom. I remember how exciting it was when at school there was a visitor but I never met a scientist at 9 and that, I think, my 9 year old self would have enjoyed.
Have you been to teach children about science? What are your hints and tips on engaging children in science? Have you thought about it but don't know how to get started or are worried about working with children? Let me know below, or tweet me @nonisa
Addition:
We got thank you letters from the children we went to visit. They had some great pictures so I thought I would include a couple.
