Lesson 2 – Meet the Scientists

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If you have booked a computer room for this lesson, follow this link for a student-led lesson with more independent learning.

Students will be finding out about the scientists this lesson.

There are 25 MRC researchers and support staff on the site, so it may be best to have a look before the lesson and print the profiles of the people you would like to focus on in your subject.

Starter

Class discussion (you could put the zone home page on the screen as a stimulus here)

• What did the students find out in their homework?
• Whose profiles did they look at?
• What do they think of the scientists so far?
• Have any of your students’ questions been answered yet?
• Write a list of questions you could ask the scientists to find out more about their work – keep these for the next activity.

Main activity – speed dating!

1. Split students into groups – give each group a printed scientist’s profile to read through together.
– What do they think about this person? What would they like to ask them on the site?

2. Split each group in half (A’s and B’s).
– A’s stay where they are as their scientist.
– B’s move to another group to ‘interview’ a different scientist (they can use the questions formed in the starter for this).

3. Move students on after a few minutes so they can interview as many scientists as possible.

Plenary

Class discussion (you could put the zone home page on the screen as a stimulus here)

• What do they think of the scientists they have “met” today?
• Write a list of questions to ASK scientists on the site.
• Brief students about the live chat lesson.

Suggested Homework

Students log on and ASK at least one question to a scientist.

If students haven’t set up their accounts yet, generate student registration link and share it with the class.