The meeting at UCL is the return visit of the programme between Rotterdam and London, and once again we will be working with the same young people and teachers from the London science specialist schools and their counterparts from schools in Rotterdam. As was the case in Rotterdam, the programme in London will be based around lectures, lab demonstrations, student workshops and informal discussion.
The theme of the programme is ‘From Molecules to Behaviour’.
Dr Claire McNulty has written a report on the London meeting. Also, have a look at Quentin Cooper's "Science, warts and all...".
The programme opens with lectures by Professor Lewis Wolpert on 'Belief and the unnatural nature of science' and Professor Steve Wilson on 'From molecules to behaviour'. This is followed by a series of lab demonstrations, and student workshops focussing on the scientific and ethical aspects of embryonic research and cloning. The Teacher workshop on Science learning approaches will be led by Angela Hall and Sally Johnson, Science Learning Centre at the Institute of Education. The day finishes with a light hearted science quiz and charades.
Professor Uta Frith, opens with a lecture on ‘Autism and our social brain’ followed by Professor Frank Grosveld, on Epigenetics. During the student poster session each workshop leader brings along an experimental result and with their help the students produce a poster showing the background, the experimental method, the results and interpretations. After lunch and the poster presentation Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore will close the meeting with a talk on ‘The adolescent brain’.
Before and after participation in each phase of the NGS programme, we are mapping the perceptions of students and teachers by using questionnaires and interviews, to see if their outlook has become more international and whether their views of science and research have changed as a result of their participation in the programme. The findings are being used to identify areas of improvement and further development of the NGS scheme.
Read more about the Rotterdam programme in October 2005.
For more information, contact Joanna de Jong-Keogh.
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