Researchers in Residence - could you inspire pupils with your scientific research?

Petra Schneider is a Wellcome Trust funded post-doc at the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, University of Edinburgh. Petra recently undertook a Researchers in Residence placement at North Berwick High School in East Lothian.

"The Researchers in Residence program gave me the opportunity to talk about my work with a different age group, to share my research experience with the pupils and very importantly, learn about their viewpoint on science and my work.

Working at North Berwick High School was a great experience! The teacher who I worked with, Carole MacLaren, helped me adjust my sessions to fit her teaching schedule, the interest of the students and the curriculum. Together, with Carole, we developed the 'mosquito feast' for second year science students; using pop socks worn by the children we carried out experiments on the biting habits of mosquitoes. It was a lot of fun and hopefully showed the pupils that science can be useful, exciting and fun at the same time. The lessons for 6th year students were more advanced and included subjects from 'maths in biology' to performing a PCR. The molecular biology practical was received especially well! The pupils were studying this subject and found it difficult to understand from reading the theory alone. We extracted DNA at the school and each pupil set up the reaction to amplify their own DNA sample. The pupils came to Ashworth Labs at Edinburgh University to collect and discuss their PCR results. During that same visit, the pupils visited our laboratories to see parasites under a microscope, the rooms where we breed mosquitoes for our research and the lecture theatres where some of them may follow classes themselves in the coming year. Additionally, they had the opportunity to meet other scientists during coffee time, to informally chat about science, what scientists do during a regular working day, about life as a university student and much more.

I really enjoyed working with Carole and her pupils - I learned a lot. Their enthusiasm was infectious: Carole's pupils reminded me that being a researcher (which you kind of get used to after a while) is actually really cool! Carole and I have decided to continue at least the PCR session on a yearly basis and I look forward to this."

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