Primary Science Education Conference

Overview
This year pupils from Mearns Primary School had the opportunity to take part in a project to launch a weather balloon into the upper atmosphere to study changes in atmospheric composition and pollution. The project was run by hi-impact consultancy with support from Bristol University. The focus was on giving pupils an opportunity to be involved in every stage of a scientific research project from asking the initial questions through project planning to data collection, analysis and presentation. This type of high-profile project and the subsequent research opportunities has had a significant impact on pupil engagement in science and their understanding of scientific research. It has enhanced the work the school already do on developing the Science Capital of their pupils and the Citizen Science projects they engage in. The project was part funded by the Royal Society who offer partnership grants to support schools collaborating in real scientific research in a variety of contexts. This seminar will explore the importance of pupils having opportunities to engage with scientific research in a variety of ways, how schools can access grants to support projects and how you can find opportunities to get involved in scientific research.

Talk 1 – Professor Dudley Shallcross
Research shows that when pupils have the opportunity to get involved in real scientific research there is an increased engagement with science. In the opening section of the seminar Professor Dudley Shallcross will discuss the importance of engaging pupils in scientific research to inspire and engage them and raise their awareness of the importance of science in a wider world context. He will discuss different ways in which scientific research can be brought into the classroom and how it can be used effectively. He will explore the importance of accessing current scientific research, adapted for their level, as a way to improve understanding of the importance work scientists do. He'll also look at the positive effects of schools engaging in high impact scientific research projects with academic partners. It will discuss current research around engaging pupils and how carefully planned scientific experiences can benefit pupils and schools.

Talk 2 – Paul Tyler
Paul is a primary teacher and science lead and has a history of engaging pupils through 'real' science experiences at his school. He has used a wide variety of Citizen Science projects throughout the school and organised large scale programmes of STEM visits and visitors. Recently the school have been involved in a project to launch a high altitude weather balloon up to the edge of space to study atmospheric conditions. The project involved 130 Primary 7 pupils working alongside STEM experts in a wide variety of fields to plan the mission, programme the detectors, monitor the launch and flight, collect the data and analyse it. The inspiration and pupil engagement of such a project contribute hugely to the Science Capital of the pupils who took part.

Talk 3 – Jo Cox
Jo Cox will discuss the Royal Society's schools’ grant scheme and how her team can support schools to get involved in research projects with academic partners. She will explain the Royal Society’s focus on getting young children involved in scientific research from an early age, the value of expert partners in a school setting and the benefits to teachers of becoming engaged in research . As part of this session she will walk teachers through the application process, which can appear daunting, so that they can access the £3000 grant in 2020 following a step by step timeline. The Royal Society Partnership Grant scheme is unique in that it is fully supportive of time pressures that teachers are under and recognises that support with the application process is as important as support during the project. Pitfalls, advice and eligibility criteria will be discussed along with project ideas for teachers to consider.

Chaired by Sue Martin

Matt Larsen-Daw - Education for Our Planet
How can science educators help to save the planet? Starting with an introduction to the wealth of educational resources and free multimedia content available to educators through the Our Planet project, this practical talk will use real-life examples and demonstrations to explain how you can embed environmental education into your lessons and wider school life, and why you should. Includes an interactive guide to involving your students in the Our Planet global citizen science programme, building understanding of local and global biodiversity and the role they can play in sustaining it for the future.

Fran Long - Engaging with natural history museums to invigorate your science curriculum at school
Discover how museum collections and practical study of real specimens can be used to enrich the KS2 curriculum. A recent pilot study using the British Insect Collection demonstrated the impact of using of museum specimens to successfully increase knowledge. Development of working scientifically skills were evident whilst sparking curiosity and a passion for natural history. Learn about opportunities to showcase STEM careers (role of an entomologist) and link to work of famous scientists such as Carl Linnaeus. Many ideas can easily be replicated in the classroom and school grounds whilst demonstrating the benefits of collaboration with local museums and organisations.

This talk will provide an introduction to curriculum and training materials produced by the EU funded project Creativity in Early Years Science (2014-1017) designed to support creative, inquiry-based approaches to early years science (children aged 3-8). It will include an overview of ways in which project materials were developed through partnerships between researchers, teachers, teacher educators and school leaders. Participants will be involved in discussion and practical activities to explore the nature of creative, inquiry-based approaches to learning and teaching. They will share classroom examples that illustrate both opportunities and challenges in fostering young children’s creativity in science.

This talk presents both the student and teacher voice as the narrative of an organic teaching and learning intervention that sought to seamlessly integrate science, mathematics, literacy and technology into a blended learning schools generic inquiry programme. Rationales for the changes to both teacher and children’s learning roles and core conceptual ideas are identified and discussed as exemplars of the children learning scientifically are shared and discussed.

Teaching about animals and their lifestyles isn’t as easy as it looks. There’s lots of information for children to grapple with, there aren’t many obvious practical investigations, and didactic teaching can often take the place of enquiry-based learning. This interactive talk demonstrates how to provide access to information so children interact with and apply new ideas. It demonstrates interactive strategies and techniques that encourage systematic reflection, discussion and research. It illustrates how you can engage and inspire children to learn about animals, and how you can make teaching this topic more enjoyable.

25 years of human brain imaging have reignited centuries’ old speculations about sex differences in the brain. Are there sex differences in the brain? If so, where do they come from and what do they mean for the brains’ owners? Public communication of such findings can be a mixture of ‘neuronews’ and ‘neurononsense’ and we need to be alert to the difference.

Recent advances in brain imaging technology are now allowing us to investigate the human brain’s early years and ask the same questions. Do we have the same problem with neuronews and neurononsense? This talk will review key findings to date and discuss what they mean for our children.

Professor Gina Rippon is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, Birmingham. Her research involves state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques to investigate how the brain interacts with what is going on around it, and what happens when this process goes wrong. She has researched atypical conditions such as schizophrenia, as well as developmental disorders such as dyslexia and autism. Her current research focus is on Autism Spectrum Disorders, trying to measure ‘misfiring’ feedback loops in ASD brains . She is also involved in research investigating girls on the autistic spectrum and whether they present a different biological and behavioural profile to the classic profile associated with boys on the spectrum.

Gina is heavily involved in the critical neuroscience community, commenting on the use of neuroscience techniques to explore social processes such as gender stereotyping and stereotype threat. She is against the idea that there are two sorts of ‘hardwired’ brains’, male and female, and notes that brains are much more complicated than that!

She is an outspoken critic of ’neurotrash’, the populist (mis)use of neuroscience research to (mis)represent our understanding of the brain and, most particularly, to prop up outdated stereotypes. She is a past-President of the British Association of Cognitive Neuroscience and, in 2015, was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association.

http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lhs/staff/az-index/rippong/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Rippon

Overview
This seminar will explore the current research and practice with regards STEM careers guidance in Primary school. The first speaker will share current careers research and understanding, and explore the increasing importance place upon careers messages from the Early Year and throughout primary school. The second speaker, a primary STEM coordinator, will share their experience of embedding careers messages in science lesson at a personal and subject leadership level. The final speaker, a university academic who runs STEM outreach in schools, will share their experience of crafting targeted careers messages to promote STEM disciplines.

Talk 1 – Carol Davenport
Carol’s talk will share the underpinning research that supports embedding careers in the primary classroom and the approach that the NUSTEM group at Northumbria University has developed in its outreach work with primary schools in the north east of England.

Talk 2 – Mark Storey
Mark is a STEM leader in a primary school in north east of England. He has been working closely with Northumbria University to develop methods of careers intervention and embedded teaching practices in his school. Mark will share his experience of using a careers approach to teaching STEM and what this looks like at the chalk-face, both at an individual teacher and subject coordinator level. He’ll also share some of the careers aspiration research completed in his school, which has given him a clearer picture of the aspirations of his pupils and how he has used this to adjust his STEM teaching approach across his school. Embedding the approach is not without its challenges and Mark will share these as part of his talk, and identify strategies that have worked in his setting.

Talk 3 – Kate Winter
Kate is an academic and researcher working the department of Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University. She has taken the approach described by Carol and used this to develop careers-based, research-linked STEM outreach activities in schools. Kate will discuss her experiences of design, development and delivery of careers led STEM outreach. She’ll also provide the audience with an increased under-standing of the variety of STEM careers that are avail-able to young people, and share ideas on how to link them directly to the children in the primary classroom.

Chaired by Kate Bellingham