• Question: How can teachers make science more intresting?

    Asked by roshni to Laura, Lily, Mark, Paul, Sarah on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Roberts

      Mark Roberts answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Erm I don;t know – I’ve not been in school for ages so don’t know how they teach it these days – surely that’s a question for you – how do you think they can? Would doing more experiments make it more interesting?

    • Photo: Lily Asquith

      Lily Asquith answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      I think teachers hands are tied because they have to teach you the curriculum.

      If the government thinks you should learn about watching paint dry rather than supernovae then the teachers don’t have any choice but to do what they say.

    • Photo: Laura Maliszewski

      Laura Maliszewski answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Teachers have a hard job, there’s so much they have to teach you and so little time!

      I think IAS is a great way to fill in the gaps in a syllabus. Greater engagement with people doing the work you want to learn about is always fun.

    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      That’s a very tricky question – I spend a lot of my time working with schools, trying to make physics in particular “more interesting”. But it’s very difficult, as science can be quite a hard subject, so it is important that students understand the subject – most people learn better when they are enjoying what they do, so I try and find ways to make tricky science subjects more interesting.

      As an astronomer, I’m lucky in that a lot of “exciting” physics falls in my subject area – the Big Bang, black holes, searching for alien life etc. – so I use astronomy to try and teach physics and amths in particular. I run a project that allows schools to remotre-control two large (2-metre) telescopes in Hawaii and Australia: http://faulkes-telescope.com

      We hope that by doing astronomy, people will enjoy science more. Another project is all about “what killed the dinosaurs” – so it’s about impacts from asteroids and comets. My favorite bit is the software we developed to allow you to simulate impacts on the earth:

      http://down2earth.eu/impact_calculator

      I hope that things like that, where you get to “play” with science, will make it more interesting. But in schools, teachers have limited time and resources, so it is hard for them to do the sorts of things that scientists can do when we visit your school.

    • Photo: Sarah Bardsley

      Sarah Bardsley answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Science is fab! I’m sorry you don’t feel science is interesting. Where else in school can you get to do practicals, experiment and discover things for yourself? This initiative is a pretty good idea and is hopefully inspiring you. Perhaps teachers need to show how science is connected to everything and knowing how stuff works will be valuable all throughout your life.

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