Ahead of taking part in I’m a Scientist, book a Chat and see the Teacher Guidance notes for preparation information.
We have designed a lesson plan, based on the Science Capital Teaching Approach . The lesson plan fits a 60-minute session. If you’d like to deepen your students’ experience there is also a 3-lesson set of plans.
Give students access to the activity through the premade login cards or the student registration URL.
Tell students which scientists will be attending your Chat
Students should explore the profiles of the scientists attending your Chat. Each student should write down 3 questions they would like to ask during the Chat.
Support:
Students work in pairs
Come up with some questions as a group
Scaffold questions or provide sentence starters
Extend:
Students look at the questions they have formed and see if they can make them open-ended questions
Students look up some of the techniques or areas of research the scientists mention in their profiles
In the final few minutes of the Chat, alongside the mod’s prompt, encourage students to think of a question that they’d like more information about.
Students use the Ask feature to ask their questions; this is also a good chance to re-ask a question that didn’t get answered in the Chat.
Support:
Students could ask a question about a personal interest of theirs or the scientists
Extend:
Students should think about a question that was answered by a scientist in the Chat. Can they ask a follow-up question to this to deepen their understanding?
Students should take a minute or two to consider which scientist is the most deserving of their vote. Share with a partner why this is the case.
Students vote from the Vote page for their favourite scientist to win £500.
Reflect: 5 minutes
Complete the class reflection activity to facilitate discussion around your students’ experience. Through this assessment tool, students delve deeper into the learning outcomes they have met.