STEMNET Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network

This is the first time I have presented something at this School. The event was an off-curricular morning planned for students in Year 6 who had been studying the topic of "How we see". Since I work on eye injuries and disease, I was asked by one of the teachers (through the Headteacher) to come in and give a general talk about my background as a scientist and how I got to where I am and then cover the topic of how we see. I planned 3 activities as well as a 30 minute presentation on life as a scientist and the how we see. In one of the actvities, I got students to look down a microscope at sections of eyes and explaine to them the different layers of the retina and how the rods and cones come together to enable us to see the aorld aound us. In another activity, I had a model of a human eye that comes apart into bits and so the students could see how the different parts fit together. The final activity was to label a couple of basic diagrams of the structure of the eye, things like the iris, pupil, lens and retina. 

The students were very respectful and always curteous. They were very responsive and whenever I asked questions there was always a flood of hands willing to answer. Their enthusiasm impressed me greatly. They were also a very bright bunch of children and knew quite a lot already about how we see. They enjoyed the actvities, especially looking through a "real" microscope! All in all, the event was very well supported by the classteacher and the staff in general. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and would definitely recommend other STEM members to get involved and see how you could make a difference to children in your local schools.