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Asked by hannah98 to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 29 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by dhruvb789.
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James Pope answered on 29 Jun 2012:
Hi hannah98,
In my work as a STEM Ambassador or in the Leeds festival of Science, I go into schools or have schools come to me and I do a session on climate change and palaeo-climate modelling.
My session runs, a little like this. I introduce myself, my educational background, my interests and what a PhD actually requires, as people often don’t know what one is, and what is required to pass a PhD.
I then introduce the climate of the Earth and all the interconnected elements and then I introduce a climate model. As there has now been far too much of me talking, so I get everyone online using a climate model resource that is freely available on the internet
I ahve a worksheet of questions relating the level of Carbon Dioxide we can have in the atmosphere in 2100 if we want global mean temperatures to be, 1°C, 2°C, 3°C, 4°C or 5°C and in what year we have have to reach the peak emissions to get that tempertaure.
After everyone has done this, we discuss peoples results and what the kids think the most likely answer is. I then change onto looking at geology and what rocks and fossils (especially fossil plankton) can tell us about past climates. I hand out some rock samples and examples of the fossil plankton (images produced by my friend Lyndsey Fox: https://vanadiumj11.iasuk.ddev.site/profile/lyndseyfox)
I get the kids to hand the rocks, feel them, smell them and with a help sheet work out what sort of environment they come from. I usually use sandstone from a desert and limestone from a fossil coral reef as my examples. Once I have done this, I summarise what we have covered, give my view on where climate change is going and what we need to do and then I open the floor up to questions so that the kids (and teachers) can ask me anything they want.
I enjoy the questions best, because as on here, you always get a great variety and some really challenging ones!
So, I think that’s how I do most of my explaing my work to young adults or children, I normally work with secondary school and 6th form pupils, so 11-18 years old.
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Davie Galloway answered on 3 Jul 2012:
Hi hannah98,
I often go round schools and give talks about my science either through my work (under the Public Understanding of Science project) or as a STEM Ambassador. Fortunately for me the science of earthquakes can usually hold most peoples attention due to the amazing pictures that i can show of the damage that they can do. They seem to have the wow factor.
When I do talk to young adults and children I usually give the same talk as I would to other scientists except I just change some of the wording and add a few other slides to demonstrate the why, how and where earthquakes happen. I’ll also take a working seismometer to the school, hook it up to a computer and let the kids jump around to create their very own earthquake on screen … kids love this. I also take other visual things to the school for example I usually take a couple of slinkies with me as this is a good way of explaining how seismic waves work. I think visual or practical things seem to help explain things much easier. The fact that most of the schools or pupils i speak to are fascinated by earthquakes (and volcanoes as well) helps get my science across to them. The Q & A session afterwards usually last longer than the talk … which gives me enormous satisfaction that they genuinely interested in what i’ve just told them.
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