Summer SAVY, Session 6 Day 5, Science Communication and Immunology (7th-8th)
What an exciting week, particularly the last day we’ve had in the SciComm and Immunology classroom. This morning, the students were very excited to see what grew on their plates from our microbiology experiment yesterday. We discussed some challenges of scientific research as well as the parts of a research report.
The students made posters with their hypotheses, methods, summary of results, and discussion sections on them to present to the class. I challenged them to think of a future experiment or a change they might want to make to their experiment if they got the chance to do this again.
Here are some questions you might ask your student to learn about their final project:
- What surface in the classroom did you choose to test?
- How did you collect bacteria from that surface? What kind of plates did you use to grow the bacteria overnight?
- Did you see any bacteria growth? Why or why not? Did you see any differences in your samples? (Some students compared different surfaces, others compared different ways to clean, etc.)
- What are some technical challenges of this kind of microbiology experiment?
- How would you use your results to teach someone about microbes in their environment? Maybe about cleaning, or wearing shoes in the house, or about washing your hands.
- Were the results consistent with your prediction/hypothesis? Why or why not?
- What is one thing you’d do differently or try next?
This afternoon, the students were introduced to a research paper about the effectiveness of the flu vaccine and why we should consider getting the flu shot every year even if sometimes you can still get sick with the flu after getting the vaccine. This gave students a taste of what it’s like to read real scientific research and interpret a figure. We walked through the figures together, and students learned different ways to present their data (line or bar graphs, tables, infographics, etc.)
Finally, the students were asked to present the data they learned in the research paper as an infographic. This is a particular challenge for young students – they both need to understand a data set AND re-write it in a way that is understandable even to a non-science audience.
Perhaps what was the most fun activity was the results of our immune booster competition of healthy habits throughout the week – we had an 8-way tie that was broken by the students answering questions about what we’ve learned this week. We had to go many rounds to get our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. Luckily, this means half our class had a perfect score of healthy habits all week!
It has been a great week with these students – everyone was an active participant throughout the week. I’ve enjoyed being able to share my love of immunology with them.
Warmly,
Dr. Elizabeth Wescott