Read our school visit diaries!
29 - 30 November 2007
Costeas Geitonas School, Athens, Greece
Fay Christodoulou
Arranging my visit to the Costeas Geitonas School (CGS) was rather informal and easy, because I have kept in touch with my teachers since my graduation. It was a lot of fun to organise everything together with my former classmate and friend Zoi Geitona, who is employed there as the International Baccalaureate (IB) coordinator of the school.
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The IB diploma is a two-year programme of international education, which covers the last two years of high school (ages: 16-18). CGS was the first school in Greece to adapt the IB teaching mentality and to construct an international educational programme for the younger ages (14-16). Their scheme prepares pupils earlier, aiming for a smoother development of all the organisation and communication skills the students will need during the IB and later at university.
In conjunction with Zoi, I planned to give four presentations: one for IB diploma students (17 years old), one for "international high school" students (16 years old) and 2 for "international junior high school" students (14-15 years old). The presentations took place in the classroom under teacher supervision and lasted one teaching hour (45 minutes). At the end, students had 10-15 minutes to ask questions.
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I was advised to adapt the complexity of my presentations according to the background knowledge of the target students, so that I could capture their interest. To do this, I first had a look at the taught curriculum of each class.
On the day of the talks, I first introduced myself and immediately mentioned the time when I used to sit on their side of the desks, since I am a CGS alumnus myself. This was a very effective and fast way to gain their attention. Their curiosity was visible in their eyes, once they knew we had something in common. I also showed them pictures of EMBL Heidelberg and the lab to show them exactly where I am doing my PhD.
I planned a smooth transition from introducing myself to introducing my topic of research in order to keep everyone alert. Showing them my profile from www.myspace.com was a great way to achieve that since Charles Darwin is one of my "friends". Grabbing this opportunity, I introduced Darwin's work and involved the pupils in an interactive activity:
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Students were given pictures of different animals and were asked to decide among themselves how to group them in order to help me design a phylogenetic tree. Their output was always a correct phylogenetic tree. I gave them a simple task on purpose, to help them realise that Darwin's approach was not complicated or impossible for "mortals" to understand, but simply a matter of observing, recording and processing. In this way they could befriend scientific thinking without experiencing it as something exclusively for the "talented".
I then moved on to explain Darwin's theory of natural selection and the concept of common ancestry of all animals. For difficult concepts, I used cartoon representations of the theories, followed by actual examples. I also made jokes to capture everyone's attention. It was surprising to see that everyone could follow my ideas and they were eager to hear more.
After introducing Darwin and his revolutionary theories, I showed pictures of young embryos from different animals, pointing out how similar they look and then explained how the field of evo-devo arose. To demonstrate how evolution acts on genotype and affects phenotype (morphology), we played a word game which made this concept very clear.
By this point the students had all the knowledge they needed to understand the basics of my project and even found it exciting! Naturally, I presented a simplified version of my findings. Their enthusiasm was rewarded by a glimpse of the marine worm that I study (I had brought some in a falcon tube). They were delighted to play with the falcon tube and scare the poor worms!
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My last slide was a collage with funny pictures of my friends and lab colleagues at EMBL, plus landscape pictures of places I have visited around the world for courses or conferences. I took the opportunity to stress that science is about team work and involves a lot of traveling, too!
A sample of students' questions:
- How important is the choice of bachelor degree with regard to post-grad orientation?
- Is it possible to study physics and then do research in biology or chemistry? (Here I introduced them to systems biology.)
- What is your personal opinion on this: should one study what is interesting or what guarantees a prosperous income?
- How much money will I earn?
- Do you think I will find a job on this exact field in Greece? How flexible am I?
- How many larvae of your worm are found in plankton?
- Which universities do you recommend for studying marine biology?
- Is there funding in studying alternative energy?
- Is global warming affecting scientific funding?
- What were your grades when you were our age?
- What do you think about our grades, can we enter university with these grades?
- Are all your experiments done in the lab or is there fieldwork too? (Here I brought up metagenomics and the latest trend to study organisms in their natural environment.)
- How much time do you spend in the lab?
I experienced a pleasant feeling after my school visit. I was happy that the students had liked me because it made it easier to show them what makes my field of research so interesting. I felt they were initially curious about me and eventually got carried away in being curious about my project! They really appreciated having a guest informing them about cutting-edge science and all the emerging fields and opportunities. It was striking for me to see how much they struggle between following their spontaneous interests and getting a "safe" well-paid job by studying something as general as business.
The thought of inspiring a student or two out of the 120 who heard my talk is very rewarding on its own. I have been inspired in a similar manner and hope this cascade of inspiration will never stop.