ASDC March Members' Forum: Engaging non-specialist teachers and an introduction to SAMHE

We have an action-packed ASDC Members' Forum for Education & Outreach teams with two speakers and a quick-fire round the table to find out what's going on in your science centre for British Science Week 2024.

Join colleagues from science centres and museums around the UK from 3.30-4.30pm (please note the later time slot for this forum).

Working with non-specialist primary school teachers

We will be hearing from Dr Fay Lewis, Senior Lecturer in STEM education in the Department of Education and Childhood leading the MA Education programme at University of the West of England, who will be sharing her work on reaching teachers and children who are not science specialists or enthusiasts.

In response to issues highlighted in the research, the team at UWE have developed a range of Science based literary materials (SLMs) and associated teacher resources (including science and English lesson plans) to encourage SLM use more widely across the curriculum. In this session we will explore the issues raised by teachers, and take a look at the teaching materials developed by Faye and her colleagues.

What's in the air inside your science centre?

We will also be joined by Dr Rhys Archer, Citizen Science researcher who leads on developing SAMHE resources for schools. SAMHE (pronounced 'Sammy') stands for 'Schools' Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education' and is a national research project bringing together scientists, pupils and teachers to better understand indoor air quality in UK schools. SAMHE is establishing a network of air quality monitors in schools across the UK to generate an unparalleled dataset which will help researchers better understand schools indoor air quality. Schools get an interactive Web App where they can view and interact with data from their monitor and use it in curriculum-linked activities and experiments.

Following a brief introduction to SAMHE and the progress of the project, we will be discussing how science centres could be part of the next phase.

This forum is for ASDC members-only. Please register here.