Zoom into a high-school
Do you want to improve your communication skills by presenting your work to high-school students? Each semester, doctoral students in biology can particitpate in this communication project. Last year PhD students from Uppsala university, SLU and Gothenburg University made digital visits to upper secondary school classes in different parts of Sweden. Would you like to join the project?
Information for PhD students
- to offer up-to-date and somewhat interactive biology research presentations to Swedish high school students.
- to promote education and research in Biology.
- to offer possibilities for young researchers to practice outreach to a young audience.
Interested? Contact ammie.berglund@bioresurs.uu.se.
When?
Register no later than 13th of January 2025 thorugh an email to ammie.berglund@bioresurs.uu.se. Present a captivating title, and two sentences about the content of the presentation about your research. It is good if these sentences include basic content, which makes it easier for the teacher to relate to the course syllabus. In the end of January, a list of titles and short presentations is presented on this web page (under the Header ”Zooma med en doktorand i biologi”), for the school teachers to register.
The Zoom visit takes place during the spring semester at an opportunity that teachers and doctoral students agree on.
How?
During the Zoom visit
You ”Zoom” into a high school classroom, give a presentation, if you like it may include a small ”tour” in your lab/office and answer the students’ questions. In addition, you talk about what it is like to work as a researcher and gives tips on different courses that can lead to it.
Preparations
When registration for the teachers has been closed, the titles of the presentations are matched with the teachers. After that, each researcher gets the names of 1-3 teachers (in your registration you can tell what number of visits you like to offer).
- Send an e-mail to each teacher ASAP and ask them to suggest a few times for the Zoom visit. In most cases, teachers want it to happen during the students’ regular biology lessons, which are fairly fixed times, but the same from week to week. It is good for you to know that the teachers might not answer the e-mail the same day, since they are quite often occupied with teaching. However if the answer takes a week or more, you should contact the coordinator (Ammie Berglund, ammie.berglund@bioresurs.uu.se).
- Prepare your presentation, starting from your University’s template. You can discuss the presentation with your supervisor, with the teacher and also if you like with the coordinator Ammie Berglund.
- Book a pre-meeting with the teacher to talk about the students’ prior knowledge and agree on some concepts that you can address in the classroom in advance. (Optional but recommended)
- Send a Zoom link to ”your” teacher together with a survey (from the coordinator Ammie Berglund) for the students to answer after the presentation.
- Have fun!
After a Zoom visit
When you have visited a class, send an email till the coordinator (Ammie Berglund) so that you can get a report from the student survey. Write a short reflection about the experience and please do not hesitate to suggest improvements of the communication project!
More information
Information given to the teachers
The visits are intended to be held in one of the following courses (age of pupils 17-19 years):
- Biology courses at high school
- The second-level science course (for non-science students) at high school
Each teacher can only book one visit per round. Register only if you want to invite a doctoral student to your classroom and ask colleagues to register themselves.
If you should be prevented from receiving the visit, you need to contact the doctoral student and ammie.berglund@bioresurs.uu.se to cancel.
In the list of presentations, you can see which ones are given in English and Swedish, respectively. Each lecture is given up to three times and the first-come, first-served principle will be applied when distributing lectures.
From the High-school Biology Syllabus
Teaching in the subject of biology should aim at helping students develop knowledge of the concepts, theories. models and methods of biology. It should contribute to students understanding of the importance of biology for climate, the environment and the human body, knowledge of different applications of biology in areas such as the development of new medicines, new materials and new technologies. Teaching should give students the opportunity to develop a scientific approach to the surrounding world. Teaching should take advantage of current research and students’ experiences, curiosity and creativity. Teaching should also help students participate in public debates and discuss ethical issues and views from a scientific perspective. The Swedish National Agency for Education (2011), Syllabus for high school Biology