10 Tips for researchers who want to visit schools

How to make your educational outreach something that leaves a lasting and positive impact:

If you are a scientist, student or researcher, here are 10 tips to help make your school visit something that leaves a lasting and positive impact:

1. Preliminary Planning:

Contact the school teacher/s in advance to discuss your visit in a bit of detail. Let them know an outline of what you have to offer and check that it is in line with what the teacher is expecting. Gather information about the students' learning level, the topics they are currently studying, and the learning objectives of the school’s curriculum.

Ask if there are any students with special needs, learning difficulties, or cultural sensitivities that you should be aware of.

2. Be Relatable:

Customize your presentation to align with the curriculum and the students' age and knowledge level. Use age-appropriate language and examples that they can relate to. Normally they will be very excited to have a visitor, so ask them what they know right at the start but don’t worry if they are shy and relatively unresponsive.
Avoid asking closed questions (those that have only have ‘yes or no’ answers) but rather ask open ended questions, respect their responses and lead them towards the concepts that you are wanting to show them.
Be relaxed and ready to laugh at yourself if you make any glitches or if something you are trying to show doesn’t work. If you are relaxed, positive, and respectful, they will feel it and enter more readily into the process.

Relate your scientific topic to real-world applications and the students' everyday lives to make it more relevant and engaging for them.

3. Plan Engaging Activities:

Don’t just give a slideshow and talk. Include a mix of activities during your visit, such as presentations, storytelling, hands-on experiments or demonstrations. Bring some real life objects to illustrate your topic such as samples, tools, clothing or technology. Maximise the variety to keep students engaged and cater to different learning styles and capabilities. Talk for a maximum of 15 or 20 minutes before you shift into a different activity.

Best of all, design one or more problem-solving challenges that relate to the science content you're presenting and that all of the students can attempt in small groups. Coming up with this is going to be the most time intensive part of your preparation, but once it has been done you will be able to use the same activity on into the future, making other visits easy to set up and carry out.

If this is your first visit to a school, it is very likely that you will under-estimate the amount of time you need, especially with hands-on activities. Be prepared to keep an eye on the time as your go through the session and adapt your plans if necessary.

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4. Tell stories

The best way to engage an audience is to tell a story that triggers their imagination. Give them a taste of what it is like to ‘be there’. The way I do this is to imagine the scenario in my own mind and then describe what I am ‘seeing’ using different senses as much as possible. What is it like to explore a cave, climb a volcano or make a surprise discovery whilst diving a coral reef? Bring them something of your own life experience as a scientist and then use the story to lead them to a new question or understanding.
Try to see the world from their eyes – they are new to what you are talking about so draw them in step by step to the focus of your topic. Show your enthusiasm and vary the emotional range using humour, alarm, drama or the fascination of discovery. Be aware of the pace and tone of your voice – avoid being a megaphone or – at the other extreme - so quiet that only the front row can hear you…

4. Ask questions

Set the scene right at the start to reassure the students that you are there for their benefit and nothing else. Put them at ease by telling them that you are assuming they have no prior knowledge and there are no ‘dumb’ questions. Follow this up by taking every question kindly, finding a nugget in it that you can talk to and showing your appreciation for the ideas that are expressed.

Try to elicit questions from different students, not just one or two who are dominant and vocal. Also take control if the discussion starts to get long winded or off topic.
Their questions and comments are vital information to ensure that you are pitching your delivery at exactly the right level for their interest and comprehension.

6. Evaluation and feedback:

Evaluate the results of the problem-solving challenges you have offered, by going through them and discussing the different approaches that students took. Emphasise the positive aspects of different ideas they came up with. Highlight any scientific concepts that have been implicitly used and encourage students to think critically about their efforts.

7. Wrap-Up and Reflection:

Summarize the key takeaways from your presentation and activities. Tell them what you have enjoyed as highlights of their contributions.

Open the floor for questions and reflections. Ask students what they found most interesting or surprising. A nice way to finish is to suggest that they share with a partner 3 things that they have learned in the session, and then call upon two or three of them to report back what they heard.

8. Suggest Follow-Up Activities:

Provide teachers with suggestions for follow-up activities or resources that can reinforce the concepts you introduced. If possible, leave some useful material, samples or posters for the class as a farewell gift.

9. Leave Contact Information - or not?

If you offer to be contacted with any questions after your visit make sure that the teacher will be the point of contact, and collate students’ questions in a single message. This will avoid you having to answer multiple versions of the same question from different students. Usually I prefer to have a short conversation with the teacher straight after the session to suggest ideas for follow up activity rather than open up an on-going email conversation with the class.

10. The biggest value of your visit

Showing your genuine enthusiasm for your field of science can be an eye-opener for students. Your passion can be infectious and inspire students to awaken to the fascination of science discovery.

Remember, the goal of your visit is not just to impart knowledge but to spark curiosity and a love for science. By tailoring your presentation, engaging students with interactive activities, and providing a memorable and positive experience, you can make a lasting impact on young minds and encourage them to explore the wonders of science further.

Geoscience Communication with Primary and Intermediate Schools

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As well as showing you how to best prepare a single short visit of up to an hour, you will also get great ideas for longer hands-on practical workshops, multi-day sessions and field trips (which entail another whole raft of considerations)

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