This will be the first of a few posts detailing how SciChats @ Salk is going to work. Let’s start with an overview of the concept for our inaugural run, starting in February 2014!
First of all, we must thank Nancy Swanberg, who teaches science, math, and orchestra at Del Mar Hills Elementary. She contacted the Education Outreach team here at the Salk with the idea of using her school’s multimedia resources to get students in touch with scientists. The idea for SciChats came out of a brainstorming session with Nancy, the Education Outreach team, and outreach-minded scientists at Salk.
SciChats @ Salk is modeled on a similar program based in the UK called I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out of Here! Unlike “I’m A Scientist”, which connects scientists to students via a chat room, we are going to use video chats to interact with students.
Okay. Time for the rundown. You ready?
From February through June, two scientists per month will have lunch hour conversations with a classroom of students over video chat. The scientist will interact with the students for roughly 30 minutes. 15 minutes of this time will be devoted to the scientist, who will give a brief presentation about their research. [Illustrations, media, movies, or “how-to” videos are all great ideas for engaging the students, by the way. More on this in Nuts and Bolts Part III.] The following 15 minutes will be devoted to the students’ questions.
One week before presenting, each scientist will fill out a short profile– which will be posted right here on this blog for Nancy and her students to look at. This will help the students to get to know you a little bit before talking to you, and will give the students just enough details about you for them to think up some questions. [More on this in Nuts and Bolts Part II].
After presenting, you are done! The students will grade their interaction with you, based on how well they understood what you presented and how curious they are to learn more. After all of the chats have been completed, the students will tally their scores (with Nancy’s help) and select a winning scientist. The winner will be invited to come to Del Mar Hills and give a longer presentation to the students, teachers, and parents, and will receive a prize for their efforts.
That’s it! Thanks again for joining us in our first attempt at this program. We will definitely make some mistakes and learn how to improve things along the way, but we are all familiar with that anyway as scientists, right?
One last thing- I will be the first presenter and official test case on February 11th. I will not be in contention for the prize, as it doesn’t seem quite right for one of the people writing the rules to be in the game!