The Biochemical Society’s
Monsanto Fund Project

Focus group on supporting science teachers at Key Stage 4

The Biochemical Society is running a teacher focus group in September. This will be the starting point for a number of workshops and resources we will be producing for teachers. At present the focal point is key stage 4 (GCSE). It is important that before we run any workshops or create resources that we know exactly what teachers need to assist them.

Science is an important part of the world in which we live. Scientific research and development are the key to maintaining our scientific reputation especially in areas such as scientific and technological discovery and invention. To continue this we need to maintain or increase our current science base. It is essential that people with the right skills are determined early on in life and encouraged to ensure a good supply of scientists in our future. Despite this there is growing evidence that many people begin to drift away from science at an early age.

We believe that this problem should be tackled by the Biochemical Society through an increased involvement with education in schools. Opportunities to fulfil this mission, and thereby provide teachers with the means to enthuse students towards bioscience include:

• The provision of more teachers’ workshops and local events for school students.
• The expansion of our current key stage 3 website www.scibermonkey.org and key stage 5 website www.biochem4schools.org.
• The development of a new web resource for the 14-16 age group (key stage 4).

The main areas we will be looking at in the focus group are; generally how people feel about teaching the new GCSE, problem areas of the new GCSE, the scientific enquiry (How Science Works or Ideas about Science) section, experiments and current resources used. This focus group should then lead to discussion-based ideas about the best way of supporting the curriculum.

To inspire future scientists we need to capture their imagination in the classroom and push them forward to achieve their full potential.

Past workshops run by The Biochemical Society

The Monsanto Fund

To assist them in this venture the Biochemical Society has sought out grant monies from the Monsanto Fund whose priorities are in, “maintaining the health of our earth and finding ways to improve the health and well-being of all her people”.

Examples of other Monsanto Education Projects:

• ‘Providing University opportunities for students in Brazil’
  where they offered support to university students from families of African heritage with limited income from the states of São Paulo and Bahia.
• ‘Increasing educational resources in Alabama’
  by assisting in the purchase of computers and projectors meaning that the resources available to both teachers and students was amplified, resulting in the students being able to exploring new and more diverse aspects of science.
• ‘Bringing hands-on investigative science to elementary students’
  here Monsanto was able to offer support in the St. Louis community where elementary schools lacked the resources and capacity to teach inquiry-bases science education.
• ‘Preserving local agriculture in the Andes’
  Monsanto have been assisting in the education of farmers to help them improve agricultural practices and produce healthy seeds, as recently they have seen drops in their yield and quality due to pre-colonial potato varieties and tradition farming techniques.
• ‘Raising children’s interest in science through minds-on activities’
  Explorit is a hands-on science museum in California, Monsanto was able to give them funding towards the development of family festivals, which gives both adults and children a whole range of science experiences.

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