Outreach in Science - a follow up

Derek Goto (Hokkaido University)

I wrote previously about some of the outreach activities were are involved in, particular the "Future Scientists Training Program" program that provides select high school students the chance to conduct research in a University lab for almost a year (original post). The term for the student we had has just finished, so I thought I'd provide some follow up!

I was a bit worried at first since I decided to give the student his own project different to other research in the lab, rather than just work together with current lab members. The advantage was that he would get the chance to set up and optimise the experiments and discover something new on his own, rather than something where we already knew the outcome or just helping someone else in the lab. However, the worry was also that the experiments might not turn out at all and he could be left with either negative data or no usable data at all. Fortunately the project turned out to be successful in the end and he ended up getting some very nice preliminary data supporting the original hypothesis!

A few weeks ago was the final presentation, which was held in the lobby of Kinokuniya bookstore right in the middle of Sapporo. This is an extremely public place, with big glass windows so even everyone in the street walking past could see what was going on, a pretty big hurdle for a high school student, but they all handled it very well!



One of the things that was great to see, was how he developed confidence about the project and himself over the course of the year. Several months ago he gave a small mid-term presentation within the university where he did a good job preparing the slides but was obviously nervous and had trouble interacting with the audience, particularly during the question session. It was obvious he learnt from that experience and I was quite surprised by just how much he improved. I thought he gave a very good talk and did a great job conveying the logic of the problem, what the data was and meaning, and also answering questions from general public. Obviously I wasn't the only one who thought so, because he won the "Best Presentation Award" by vote!



I'd like to think that we have managed to contribute to a young student becoming more interested in pursuing science, it would be great to see him at a conference or publishing something in 5 yrs time! It is important to remember that this has also been a great experience for myself and my lab members - nothing forces you to think about communicating science more than to mentor a high school student project while training them to explain their research in a public forum!



Fortunately, this program is ongoing and a new group of high school students have already been selected to start next month. Our lab was invited to act as a possible host again, which we happily agreed to. I have just found out that one of the new students chose our lab to join, so we will have another high school student joining us soon - will keep you posted!