10 great websites for HD science videos

When my school recently installed new HD interactive touch screens, I realised that I was going to have to change a few things. David Attenborough has produced some amazing natural history programmes. However, a poor quality, pixelated clip of him, along with some flowers blooming in the desert following a brief period of rain, uploaded by the BBC to YouTube several years ago, was no longer going to cut it on these HD screens! 

Via Pixabay

I therefore decided to go through my bookmarked websites to consolidate those with high quality biology videos and animations, as well as look for new sites with good quality, HD content. It was also important to me that these sites were uploading their content specifically for educational purposes. I don't want illegally uploaded clips that may be taken down at any point by their copyright owner. Although fair use of copyright material generally allows use for educational purposes, I feel it is better to avoid potential issues by using material where permission has been explicitly given. This also helps to model good digital citizenship for students. 

So, in no particular order, here is a curated list of excellent video or animation resources, along with a brief description of what each site offers. They are mostly life sciences-oriented, although some are more general science websites. 

Your Genome 

Excellent, high quality animations covering various molecular biology topics, including DNA replication, protein synthesis, and the molecular basis for cancer. It also has short videos with interviews with practising scientists, plus some great hands-on activities.

HHMI BioInteractive

A multitude of resources on a wide range of life science topics. I have found the ecology videos and activities relating to Gorongosa National Park, in Mozambique, particularly helpful and engaging. There are also very useful evolution and natural selection resources, for example the activities based on real data from rock pocket mouse populations and their adaptations.  

Big Picture 

This site also has a variety of life science resources, including videos, animations, and activities. The videos and animations are of a very high quality, for example this animation about the sliding filament theory of muscle contraction. There is a particular focus on making links between cutting-edge science and the wider implications for society as a whole. 

Stated Clearly

A website with high quality animations by Jon Perry, focused mainly on giving clear explanations on various aspects of evolutionary theory, natural selection, and genetics, for example this one about how cooperation between species evolved. My students also really enjoyed the animated RNA molecules in this video about the RNA World Hypothesis! 

Deep Look

Punchy, extremely high quality HD videos on various different biology topics. I particularly like the mosquito biting video, which I have used to introduce the topic of mosquito-borne disease. The hummingbird's flight in slow motion is very useful for engaging students on the topic of animal movement, while this video looks at squirrel behaviour. 

Amoeba Sisters

Lots of fun, high quality animations covering all of the key biology topics. These videos would be great for flipped classrooms. They could also be used to introduce topics, or for review at the end of a topic. 

It's Okay To Be Smart

A wide range of science videos, including biology, grouped by subject. For my students, who are all Thai and therefore English language learners, the speed at which the presenter speaks could pose a challenge - fortunately, the videos have closed caption subtitles which can be switched on if necessary. 

StemBox

This YouTube channel has videos based around practical STEM activities aimed specifically at making STEM more accessible to girls aged 7-13 years. There are lots of good ideas here that could be used for introductory science labs for younger kids, or at summer camps etc. 

Draw Curiosity

This YouTube channel by Ines Laura Dawson features an eclectic mix of videos on a range of science topics, such as why two sexes evolved, and how to build a cyborg beetle. Ines also has a Draw Curiosity website with more videos and blog posts.  

Frank Gregorio

A range of videos set to uplifting, awe-inspiring music by Frank Gregorio. I use the Introduction to Biology video as an attention grabber when I see my new class of Grade 10 students for the first time at the start of our three years studying biology together, and it always prompts a round of applause! 

Bonus tip! Don't want YouTube comments below a video you want your students to watch? Use ViewPure to remove comments and other distractions from YouTube videos!

I hope this list of websites is useful. It would be great to hear suggestions about other, similar websites that I've not included!

A visit from NASA

I was recently extremely pleased and honoured to welcome two NASA scientists, Dr Dorian Janney and Peter Falcon, on a visit to my school. There were a number of factors that led up to this point, which I will outline here, along with a brief overview of the visit itself. 

A few years ago my school purchased an automated weather station. We had it installed on the roof, and it now continuously uploads data to the website Weather Underground. Since then a colleague, Craig Wardman, and myself have also facilitated the participation of some our students in various citizen science programmes. These include NASA's S'COOL and CloudSat weather observation schemes. During that time we have held a number of videoconferences for our students where they had the opportunity to interact with different NASA scientists.

Recently, however, we were lucky enough to take things a step further, when two NASA scientists, Dr Dorian Janney and Peter Falcon, paid a visit to our school. We invited our Year 8 students, along with members of our Climate Club, to join in with an afternoon of activities and discussions about the scientists' work with NASA.

The students began with presentations about life in Bangkok and at our school, and followed this up with a fun quiz created in Mentimeter. Whenever we have videoconferences, webinars, or indeed visits such as this, we encourage some of our students to give brief presentations. This gives them invaluable speaking practice, especially as some of them may go on in the future to international careers where English is the medium of communication. 

Following the students' presentations, Dorian gave a great talk about the important work NASA is doing in relation to the earth's water cycle. The kids were surprised to learn that the water they drink could have once been dinosaur pee! 

Next, Peter gave a fascinating insight into life as a NASA scientist. He outlined the time his department were given the opportunity to launch an instrument that would be attached to the International Space Station - except they had an extremely tight window of opportunity in which to design and construct the instrument. They managed to put an instrument together in time by rounding up old bits of kit they had from previous missions. 

The day ended with a line of students queuing up to ask questions, which Dorian and Peter very patiently answered. This was a great way for our students to make connections between what they learn in class and real-world science, while engaging in discussions with practising scientists from NASA, a globally-recognised leader of scientific research and exploration.

All in all, this was a fantastic experience for our students, and one which we can hopefully repeat in the future. We are very grateful to Dorian and Peter for affording our students this opportunity. As a thank you we took them out for dinner - although this also gave us more time to quiz them about their amazing experiences of working with NASA!

Linking learning to the real world

This week we held a second day-long workshop on mathematical modelling of infectious diseases for my Year 13/Grade 12 students. The workshop was run by team of researchers from the Mahidol University-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Unit here in Bangkok. The team were from the Mathematical and Economic Modelling Group headed by Professor Lisa White (who also happens to be my wife!) The workshop was arranged by myself and my colleague from our maths department, James Sayer. 

The rationale behind the workshop was to provide a cross-curricular STEM event, which aimed to give our students an opportunity to see how what they are learning in the classroom may be applied to real-life, and in some cases life or death, situations. For example, one of the areas the team has worked on was the recent Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Additionally, our students gained insights into life as an international researcher, with role models, both female and male, representing a variety of nationalities - Thai, Myanmar, Laos, and British. 

Although this event was a success when we held it last year, based on students' feedback we made a few tweaks for this year's workshop. In the weeks prior to the workshop, James focused on the necessary mathematical topics with the students, such as differentiation. In my classes I spent some time with the students looking at epidemiology and infectious disease, and also bringing them up to speed with some of the technical vocabulary they would need. I also had them give small group presentations based on different aspects of pandemic influenza, such as why do these pandemics often originate in Asia, the link between humans, animals, and influenza, and the economic consequences of pandemic flu. 

The day was also structured slightly differently. There was the same mixture of practical activities, talks, and computer-based exercises. However, throughout the day this time each scientist gave a brief 10 minute overview of their own research and why it was relevant. For example, Dr Sai Thien Than Tun spoke about his individual-based modelling to investigate malaria epidemiology in Myanmar villages, PhD student Peeradone Srichan discussed his work looking at the distribution of Dengue fever cases in Bangkok, and Research Assistant Nattwut Aekaphirat talked about malaria infection in the individual. Divaree Franssen was once again on hand to provide assistance and support, and big thanks also go to my colleagues Ajarn Gahng, the students' homeroom teacher, for her help, and Khun Adun, for videoing the day's events. 

A student videoconference with NASA

Getting students involved with global citizen science projects is a great way to engage kids with science and to instil curiosity and a desire for lifelong learning. There are many such projects available, and this week some students at my school were fortunate enough to participate in a videoconference with a scientist from NASA!

Students give a presentation about El Nino.

Joining us from NASA for this videoconference was Peter Falcon, the NASA/JPL Earth Science Outreach Coordinator, who also works with the CloudSat Education Network. 

The session began with my students giving the traditional Thai greeting to Peter, before some Matayom 3 (Grade 9) students gave a presentation about the effects of the latest El Nino event here in southeast Asia (thanks go to my colleague Ajarn Craig Wardman for helping the students prepare for this). 

Students making their CloudSat observations. 

Peter was impressed at the level of detail and information provided by our students. He next gave us a 30 minute presentation on some of the background to the CloudSat project and how the data collected by students around the world are used by NASA scientists to calibrate their satellite instruments. He also explained how the CloudSat project nearly came to a premature end when the satellite's solar panels stopped working correctly. Fortunately, after several months of trial-and-error tweaking, the NASA scientists came up with a solution which allowed the CloudSat satellite to resume its observations, and the project was saved. 

Group photo!

This kind of collaborative, global project can be used to get students engaged across all of the STEM subjects. It can even lead to a STEAM-based approach, with art added to the mix of science and technology. For example, Peter mentioned some schools have students write poetry about clouds, in addition to learning about the earth and climate science aspects. 

Overall, holding this videoconference served two main purposes. Firstly, it allowed those students who had already participated in CloudSat to see how their data helped NASA scientists with their research. Secondly, it hopefully aroused interest in the younger students so that they will wish to take part in the CloudSat project in the future. This seems to have worked - later this week some students will be participating in their first CloudSat observations!

Assessment for Learning

I recently completed a free online course on Assessment for Learning (AfL) in STEM teaching. The course was put together by the UK's National STEM Centre, and was hosted by Future Learn. I'm hoping to try out a few of the techniques I learned about this coming semester.

                Image source: Flickr user Ken Whytock                                     

AfL is essentially a type of formative assessment, designed to give teachers a rapid picture of how many learners in their class have understood a particular topic or concept. A draft version of a paper co-authored by one of the course co-ordinators, Dylan Wiliam, can be found here. 

The main thrust of this course was aimed at helping teachers of STEM subjects to gauge whether or not their students have understood a particular scientific concept. It highlighted common misconceptions students have when learning science, and provided ways to diagnose these misconceptions in real-time in the classroom. 

One handy technique that was advocated was the use of hinge point questions (HPQs). These are questions, often multiple choice, that relate to specific misconceptions in order to identify which students have understood a particular concept, and those students who may need additional teaching in order to fully grasp the concept or to address the misconception. The HPQ is given to the whole class. Various ways may be used to collect responses - students could hold up numbered cards, or enter their responses into an app such as Google Forms, for example. 

The options for these multiple choice questions should be considered very carefully, and be set up in such a way that it is unlikely that a student could guess the correct answer. They should also provide the teacher with a snapshot of their students' understanding that is quick and easy to interpret. 

To give an example, a common misconception that arises when students are talking how evolution and natural selection operate is that organisms 'adapt themselves' to suit their environment. A hinge point question that could be used to tease out this misconception might be as follows:

• Which of the following statements are true about convergent evolution, for example the similar body forms seen in both sharks and dolphins? (You may choose one or more from the following options):

1. The ancestors of dolphins and sharks adapted themselves to life underwater during their lifetimes, and passed these adaptations on to their offspring.
2. Dolphins and sharks have similar body shapes because they both evolved from the same common ancestor.
3. Some ancestors of dolphins and sharks had similar traits that enabled them to successfully survive and reproduce underwater, and therefore these traits were passed on to their offspring.
4. The ancestors of dolphins lived near water and therefore adapted themselves to life underwater.

The correct answer, #3, could in theory be guessed by students, and there is no fool-proof way to prevent this. One possible solution would be to provide more than one correct answer. However, this would make interpretation of the results more difficult and time-consuming. During the AfL course, participants were encouraged to develop and submit HPQs of their own, which were then compiled and may be accessed here. 

AfL can provide benefits to both learners and teachers. Learners can benefit since HPQs can help them to focus on their own learning - what they know, and what they need to know, thus helping them to develop their metacognitive skills. Teachers benefit since they can get an idea of the level of understanding in a classroom, gain insights into differentiation strategies that may be required, and what scaffolding may be necessary in order to develop learners' understanding and begin moving it to a deeper level. 

Taking science projects beyond the laboratory

At my school, Grade 11 students in the maths-science programme are required to work in small groups to undertake year-long science projects. Often these projects are laboratory-based, experimental-type projects, which are obviously important since science is a very practical subject. However, as the coordinator of these projects, I am also keen for students to engage in other types of projects that may not be quite so lab-based. This year provided a good example of how much learning may be achieved via a project that was not a lab-based experiment. 

The group prepares for their project presentation.

The group in question came to see me at the beginning of the year to ask me if they could do a project based around the Ebola and MERS viruses, both of which were very much in the news at the time. Obviously, this would not make for a suitable lab-based project for high school students! However, I was keen to let them pursue the topic of their choosing, and spent some time thinking of a way for them to undertake a suitable project. I then proposed to the students that they should carry out the following:

• Background research into the aetiology and epidemiology of Ebola and MERS viruses
• Develop a questionnaire to investigate the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes around these diseases
• Undertake a pilot study to test their questionnaire
• Revise their questionnaire based on the findings of the pilot study
• Carry out a larger survey of other students, as well as members of the general public
• Develop a website, based on their research, in order to publicise their findings and raise awareness, as well as providing them with a tangible product at the end of their project

Overall I was extremely pleased with the students' effort and attention to detail during this project. They worked hard on it throughout the school year, and consulted with me regularly for advice. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked them how many individuals they planned to interview for their main survey, and they told me 300 people. In the end they actually interviewed over 500 people, an impressive undertaking!

At the beginning of the project, when I suggested that they design a website to display their results, the group was initially sceptical since none of them had any web design experience. However, they took the plunge and, using Google Sites, created a very nice website which can be found here. 

A screenshot from the students' website.

Towards the end of their project, the group was very happy to be selected to display their work for a visit by the Royal School Award committee. To top things off, following the end of year project presentations their group was declared joint winners! 

The group's display for the Royal School Award visitors.

My feeling is that this project was a great success and has reinforced my view that science projects need not be lab-based in order to provide students with a valuable science learning experience. Additionally, the students themselves gave very positive feedback regarding the project. I would be happy to supervise similar projects in the future. 

Six findings from students' evaluation of their science projects

This year's Grade 11 science projects have come to an end, and once again I asked the students to complete an anonymous evaluation questionnaire to assist me with improving the projects next time around. Here are six key points arising from this evaluation.

Happy students having finished their final project presentations!

1. Scientific understanding

In terms of improving their general understanding of science, the majority of students agreed that this was the case. However, a significant minority reported they had no opinion about this, which is something I hope to improve with next year's projects.

2. Enjoyment and teamwork

More students reported that they enjoyed the science projects this time around, which may in part be due to the fact that they chose their own groups. There was also a big improvement in the number of students reporting that their group worked well as a team this year, compared with last. Again, this may reflect the fact that the groups self-selected their members. 

3. Project advisor

Each project group has a science teacher who acts as their advisor throughout the year. Groups overwhelmingly reported that their advisor had been helpful. This is encouraging because students and their advisor must work together closely for these projects, and a good relationship between them is important for the projects to be a success. 

4. Laboratory facilities

For those students who carried out a laboratory-based project, they reported that the time after school and at lunchtimes allotted for this had been useful. 

5. Project resources

Project resources, such as guidelines and templates, are made available to students via our school's LMS, Moodle, and increasingly through Google Classroom. The majority of students reported that these resources were useful, although 30% had no opinion about this, so there is definitely room for improvement here. 

6. Areas of concern

As in previous years, one of the main criticisms from students was the lack of dedicated class time for the projects. Unfortunately, given the already packed curriculum, there is little scope for this to change in the future. A number of students also commented that there was too much pressure towards the very end of the projects, with a number of deadlines occurring simultaneously across different subjects. Again, there are limited options for addressing this. However, one of the changes planned for next time is for clearer delineation of project milestones throughout the school year, which will hopefully go some way to distributing the workload more evenly.

Overall then, it would appear that students were generally satisfied with the science projects and what they learned from them. However, as always, there is scope for refining the projects and their administration, in an on-going cycle of improvement, based on the students' own thoughts and opinions. 

A field trip to the zoo - in photos

I recently took my Grade 11 biology students on a field trip to our local zoo. In this post I will share some photos from the trip. 

This field trip formed part of our study of animal behaviour. Whilst at the zoo students were expected to make observations of two different animal species in order to compare their behaviour. They were also asked to think about the arguments for and against zoos, and to find evidence to support both sides of this debate. 

I will post a full account of the pre- and post-trip activities in a later blog. 

The old and the new

In a couple of my classes this week I was fortunate enough to be able to combine some traditional approaches to teaching and learning biology, whilst utilising technology that would have been virtually unthinkable a few years ago.

Case study 1 - Modelling mitosis

Mitosis is a classic case of a biological concept that can seem very abstract to learners. Many textbooks and websites describe various different approaches for practical classes that involve modelling mitosis in order to make it something more concrete for students to grasp, for example using pipe cleaners, pop beads or modelling clay. I opted to use modelling clay - pipe cleaners were probably a lot easier to source in the past than they are these days! This was the traditional part of the class.

However, I also wanted to add something a bit more engaging to the practical, so I decided to have my students create stop-motion movies. This was the part of the class that would have been much more difficult to achieve in the past, without a fair amount of expensive and specialised kit. Now, since all of my students have smartphones, they simply downloaded a free stop motion app to their phone and away they went. Most of them chose to use a free app called Stop Motion Studio. There is an example of their work here. 

So, in the space of a double lab class, I had given brief notes on the four phases of mitosis, had my students make their model chromosomes, and also had them create a stop motion movie to generate a tangible, final finished product. Most of them also had time to make movies showing cytokinesis, illustrating the difference between this process in plant versus animal cells. 

Case study 2 - Ecological sampling techniques

The second activity was a practical activity that took us outside of the classroom, something I discussed in my last post. I do enjoy getting out of the classroom with my learners, although the conditions weren't ideal on this particular occasion - the temperature was 34° Celsius and, because it had recently rained, the humidity was around 85%!

For this practical activity learners had an opportunity to try out some classic ecological sampling techniques using quadrats. Again, this is a very traditional method used in biology that has long been a feature of high school biology classes.

The new aspects I was able to incorporate were two-fold in this case. First, students were able to take photos of their quadrats, and the plants they could count within them. These will be useful for a future activity looking at urban biodiversity. Secondly, once we got back to class, the data they had collected were entered into spreadsheets and quickly converted into tables and graphs for analysis. 

In general, my feeling is that there are often traditional approaches to pedagogy that are popular and appear frequently in textbooks, websites etc for a reason - they are effective. In these cases, it is worth keeping them. I would also not advocate using technology for the sake of it, however, in the two cases I have outlined above, I feel that technology clearly has a valuable role to play in augmenting the learning opportunities that are available. 

I would be interested to hear of other examples where old and new techniques are being used to create new and interesting learning opportunities, please feel free to comment below.

Essay submission day

I usually get a chorus of cheers at the start of the first semester from my Grade 12 biology students when I announce that there will be just one major homework assignment for the whole semester. Strangely these cheers soon change to groans when I tell them that the assignment is a 1500 word fully cited and referenced academic essay!

The rationale

I am aware that there is a continuing debate going on around whether teachers should be setting homework at all, and a few of the opposing viewpoints are summarised nicely here. Some research suggests that whilst homework may not have much effect on achievement for younger students, for high school students it can have beneficial effects on achievement. I will return to homework in a future blog post - for now I will focus on these essays & why I assign them. The rationale for this activity is that my students will shortly be going to university, and many of them will need to use academic writing skills, whatever degree subject they choose to pursue. They will also need to carry out independent research and find relevant articles and background information for themselves. Thus this essay task gives them an opportunity to gain some experience in these areas. This is not an easy task for my students since they are Thai and therefore learning (and writing) in their second language. 

The work

Before setting the essay itself, I assign three very short pre-essay tasks to give my students the opportunity to practice three important skills: paraphrasing, summarising, and the correct use of in-text citations. These tasks are awarded a simple completion grade; the main purpose is to get learners familiar with these skills. 

For the essay itself, there are some important points to note. Firstly, although it is first and foremost a biology essay, students have complete freedom to choose any topic with a biological focus. Many students choose to do a 'pure' biology essay. Other students, who may be less interested in biology, are able to choose a different approach, for example bioengineering or biochemistry. Another popular choice is to take a psychology-oriented approach, for example I have previously received essays about the psychology of sleep, and one about how the teenage brain affects teen behaviours. I think it is important for students to have this level of choice since this is a major piece of work which they will need to spend some time with - hopefully if they choose to write about something they are already interested in it will increase their engagement with the task. From my point of view it also makes the task of grading the essays far more enjoyable by having a set of completely different essays, rather than the same topic appearing repeatedly. 

The second point to note is that I give my students a time frame of three months to write the essay. They are free to submit their essay at any point during these three months, although they are informed that it will not be graded until everyone has submitted their work. This is an attempt by me to minimise deadline bottlenecks for my students at the end of the semester. Of course, being teenagers, I generally get fewer than ten percent of the essays submitted earlier than the deadline!

Thirdly, I make it very clear to students that plagiarism will not be tolerated. Very occasionally I have had to return work to students ungraded, and ask them to re-submit an essay that has not been extensively copied and pasted. I even had a student submit work that came from a website that claimed it wasn't a cheat site, but a collaborative one, when it clearly was simply in the business of selling complete essays. Fortunately these cases are rare, and the vast majority of students do a good job and are careful to fully cite and reference their work. 

Some examples

Each year I look forward to seeing the diversity of topics chosen by my students. The range of diversity can be seen in some of this year's list of essay titles, which, in no particular order, are: 

• Life in the underwater world
• Why do we die?
• Bird migration
• Infectious disease
• Stem cells
• The fatal Ebola
• Viruses
• Biodegradable plastics
• The digestive system
• Biological weapons
• DNA profiling
• Cancer treatment
• The meaning of animal behaviour
• Plant diversity and evolution
• The classification and evolution of dinosaurs
• Coronary surgery
• How does Golden Rice help vitamin A deficiency?

Summary

As already mentioned, my students are Thai and therefore a task such as this is particularly challenging for them. However, it is clear from the generally high standard of essays that I receive from my students that they put a lot of time and effort into these essays, and I am frequently pleasantly surprised at the insights and thoughtfulness displayed in some of their work. Although there is some (generally!) good-natured grumbling about the task, I think in the end my students can see the benefits of doing this work.  

Using citizen science to support global learning connections

Last week's #AsiaEd slow chat on Twitter discussed how we as educators can help our learners become globally connected citizens. As a follow-up I will outline what I think is a great way to do this, which is by encouraging students to get involved in citizen science. I have written previously about how I have introduced my students to citizen science, which is essentially science carried out by amateur, non-professional scientists. In this post I will outline various citizen science projects and websites which offer opportunities for students to participate in citizen science. I will also explain why I think these kinds of projects are useful for helping learners to become globally connected citizens. 

Dr Lin Chambers from NASA has a videoconference with students who participated in the S'COOL project.

NASA


NASA has a number of citizen science projects, for example the CloudSat and S'COOL projects. Students participate in these activities by making careful observations of the sky conditions - cloud cover, cloud types etc - then uploading these data to the respective project web sites. One of the aims of these projects is to reconcile surface observation data with observations made by sensors on satellites, in order to try and improve the accuracy of the sensors. By taking part in these projects students can make connections on a global scale. This includes making connections with the science, for example the global nature of climate science. It also includes making connections with a global community of both citizen scientists (other schools who are engaged with these projects) and professional scientists, for example NASA climate change specialists. Students at my school have participated in videoconferences with NASA scientists and with a school in the US which also participates in the S'COOL project.

A student presents some data for the NASA S'COOL project videoconference.

SciStarter

SciStarter is a very useful website which contains links to a large range of different projects in which volunteers can get involved. Their website has a search function that allows you to select and search for a variety of topics and activities. There are links to many different projects across a range of fields. 

Zooniverse

Another great website which has a variety of citizen science projects across a range of disciplines is Zooniverse. Projects include Snapshot Serengeti, where volunteers help to classify animals in photos taken by camera traps, and Asteroid Zoo, where work is conducted to identify near Earth asteroids. 

Journey North

Journey North is a website dedicated to monitoring wildlife migrations and seasonal change. It also has a number of resources for educators, such as activities, slide shows and teacher guides. 

Project Noah

Project Noah is an online tool for documenting biodiversity around the world. Anyone can join, and once signed up members can upload photos of wildlife they have taken, along with details of the organisms they spotted. This information can then be used by ecologists in various ways, for example to track the spread of invasive species, or to determine if climate change is having an impact on the geographic range of a species. 

Summary

Citizen science affords students the chance to make global connections between what they are learning in the classroom, and the community of practice of scientists. It also provides them opportunities to become globally connected with other learners around the world. There are many different citizen science projects with which learners can sign up to and get involved. By encouraging our students to engage in these kinds of activities we can provide fantastic opportunities both for learning about real science in an authentic fashion, as well as affording rich experiences for learners in a globally connected environment. 

Introducing learners to real-world scientists

This week some of my learners had a fantastic opportunity in the form of a mathematical modelling workshop. It included both epidemiological and health economics modelling, and was instigated by myself and my colleague James, who is head of maths at my school. The workshop was run by a team of international researchers from the mathematical modelling group of the Mahidol-Oxford Research Unit here in Bangkok. 

After a brief introduction, the day began with a practical simulation of infectious disease transmission.

This was followed by practical sessions using mathematical modelling software to simulate epidemics. 

There were various presentations throughout the day.

We finished off with a group activity to develop ideas for mathematical modelling research, followed by the obligatory group photo!