Let's talk significant people in chemistry

Jones, Verity; Cundy, Ross

Abstract

In this article Ross and Verity consider how we can bring significant scientists to life in our teaching and learning.

Gaining knowledge about the amazing work of people in Chemistry is a great way to get children engaged and enthusiastic about the field. We’ve found that just asking children to ‘find out’ about someone to develop knowledge and or research skills can be a dry task. Creating a fact sheet isn’t that much more exciting. However, when you ask children to bring their scientists to life using digital technology, eyes widen and classes tend to take notice.
The activity we present here takes a digital image of a Chemist and allows the children to bring it to life and make them talk about their life and work. This relies on schools having access to tablets. We use the free App called Talkr (this App is available for iOS, other photo talk Apps are available for iOS and Android). We’ve found that Talkr is an easy to use App for pupils and teachers. As with any tech’ we highly recommend testing out the App before the lesson to make sure you are familiar with it. In fact, we recommend making a talking Chemist of your own on Talkr so you can use it as a model (as you’ll see below). If you need help, there are some really useful short clips on YouTube made by other teachers (see resources below).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 31, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 27, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 2, 2023
• Journal: Primary Science
• Electronic ISSN: 0269-2465
• Publisher: Association for Science Education
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Issue: 178
• Pages: 10 - 11
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10718248
• Publisher URL: https://www.ase.org.uk/resources/primary-science/issue-178/lets-talk-significant-people-in-chemistry-cundy-and-jones-open