Programme Team I
Programme Team II
Photos

The Idea

In March 2007, ELLS received a special request to organize a training course especially tailored for science teachers from the European Schools.

The European Schools were created for children and students, whose parents work for European Institutions. There are 14 schools located in 7 countries with approximately 20,000 enrolled pupils. The European Schools provide a multilingual and multicultural education for nursery, primary and secondary level pupils.

These schools organize regular courses for their science teachers. This time EMBL has been chosen as a venue to provide first hand insight into an international research institution.

The European Schools' science teachers possess a very good science background and they come from various countries. This makes them an excellent target audience to try out the activities designed by ELLS and EMBL scientists.

After a first meeting, Education Officer Alexandra Manaia and the European School organizers, John Watson [teacher at Luxembourg European School] and Michel Renaud [European Schools Inspector] corresponded regularly to plan the course programme.

The Programme

On September 30th 2004 late afternoon the group arrived at EMBL. After the registration, Alexandra gave an introduction to ELLS and an overview of the programme. Coming from all the 14 schools, most of the teachers didn't know each other, so the group went downtown to socialize during a tasty dinner at a genuine German beer house.

As this was quite a large group [around 30 teachers], Alexandra had build two teams, each performing a different, but equivalently balanced, set of activities including scientific talks, experiments, visits to facilities and round-table discussions on the impact of scientific topics in society.

One team observed and collected chick and fish embryos at different developmental stages, performed in situ hybridization and played a game designed to give them insight into DNA microarrays and their applications. PhD students Patrick Steinmetz and Anastasios Koutsos instructed experimental activities and presented a game on DNA chips, respectively. Research Technician Sabine Schmidt led a visit to the Genomic Core Facility.

The other team visited the fish facility, learned about the differences between mutant and normal fish embryos using PCR and attended a tutorial on bioinformatics. PhD students Evantia Stamataki, Mirana Ramialison and Tetyana Klymenko assisted with the instruction of the practical activities. EMBL scientists Andreia Feijao, Francesca Diella and Sophie Chabanis-Davidson instructed the Bioinformatics tutorial. Research Technician Erica Grzebisz guided the visit to the fish facility.

EMBL scientific Director Iain Mattaj gave an overview on EMBL: the history, the main areas of research and the future directions.

Genetic counsellor Dr Sabine Hentze gave a talk on genetic testing: available technical tools, applications and risks. EMBL Head of Science and Society Programme, Halldor Stefansson gave a seminar entitled "Genetic screening: application and apprehensions" where the societal implications of these technologies were discussed. Each team played a role-play game devised by EMBL Alumno Giovanni Frazetto, dealing with study cases. Sabine and Halldor joined the team as facilitators.

Just before returning home, the participants had a great time watching the amazing bioclips presented by EMBL scientists Kota Miura and Timo Zimmermann.