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Hands-on DNA: Bridging the gap between the classroom and the lab
From today, school students across the nation are getting ready to take part in the National Hands-on DNA project, supported by the Wellcome Trust. From Dundee to London and from Belfast to Cornwall, UK students will have the opportunity to use cutting-edge lab equipment and the latest molecular biology techniques to explore DNA and evolution.
The Hands-on DNA workshops are being run by 15 science and discovery centres and museums across the UK, each acting as a specialist hub for schools in their region. The workshops will run in different regions from today through to April 2012, with the potential to extend indefinitely.
Dr Penny Fidler, the Project director and CEO of UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres said “Science is an exciting, ever-changing, investigative hands-on pursuit and this project really brings this alive. If we want our nation’s young people to be inspired and motivated by science and consider it as a career for their future, we need to give them opportunities like these so they can see how astounding and enlivening the techniques and questions of real science are.”
This inspirational, coordinated national science project has never been more needed, it comes just 2 months after the Science and Technology Select Committee warned that “Within UK schools, students are not receiving the practical science education necessary to produce the next generation of scientists”.1
“We know from the Wellcome Trust Monitor survey that getting involved with practical experiments encourages young people to study science and also that students want to learn about science that is relevant to the real world. Hands On DNA gives students fantastic opportunities to relate practical work with DNA to the world around them, for instance, learning how their genetic make-up affects their own sense of taste,” said Hilary Leevers, Head of Education and Learning at the Wellcome Trust.
This project is an example of the fantastic work carried out by Science and Discovery centres and science museums across the UK who run thousands of high-end practical workshops every year for schools. As education charities, they work to inspire and involve students with science. They also aim to support busy science teachers by offering specialist practical workshops like these across the nation that teachers can bring students to.
Michaela Livingstone, the Hands-on DNA project manager added “We are delighted that students aged 14-19 will be able to try for themselves the amazing molecular techniques used by universities and hospitals to investigate DNA, bringing alive what they would ordinarily only be able to read about in textbooks. This project will train staff right across the UK to deliver excellent hands-on experimental science to school students in their regions and provide all the lab equipment the students will need.”
The project is led by the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) in collaboration with three partner science centres; the Centre for Life in Newcastle, At-Bristol and Nowgen in Manchester. The project is supported by the Wellcome Trust3.
The 15 centres who will offer the workshops to school students are:
• Techniquest Glyndwr in North Wales
• Intech in Wiltshire
• Centre of the Cell in East London
• National Museums Liverpool
• The Observatory Science Centre, East Sussex
• Dundee Science Centre
• The Natural History Museum in London
• Techniquest in Cardiff
• Eden Project in Cornwall
• Oxford University Museum of Natural History
• Glasgow Science Centre
• L’Oreal Young Scientist Centre at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London,
• The Scottish Initiative for Biotechnology Education (SIBE) based in Edinburgh University, in collaboration with National Museums Scotland
• W5 at Odyssey, Belfast
• The University of Sheffield department for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, in collaboration with Science Brainwaves.