{"id":17032,"date":"2019-08-09T13:53:23","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T11:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=17032"},"modified":"2021-02-08T21:05:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T20:05:41","slug":"teaching-science-in-your-mother-tongue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/lab-matters\/teaching-science-in-your-mother-tongue\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching science in your mother tongue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Susana Rodrigues told her students at the Internationale Gesamtschule Heidelberg that scientists were going to visit on 22 May, the younger ones asked her: \u201cWhat are scientists?\u201d But Rodrigues wanted the children to find out for themselves. After the Native Scientist workshop, the pupils filled out a questionnaire. \u201cNobody had to ask what a scientist is any more,\u201d says Rodrigues. \u201cI think the workshop will be engraved in their memories. There was a science lesson in the Portuguese class!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A team of international volunteers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Native Scientist originated in the Portuguese community in the UK, motivated by the observation that children of migrant families would have frequent problems with school gradings. The founders of Native Scientist felt that workshops held by scientists in their native language would help these children improve their performance in school and at the same time motivate them to choose careers in STEM \u2013 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project has grown continuously since it began in 2013, mainly because the idea behind it motivates a large number of volunteers. \u201cNow we have workshops in many different languages like French, Italian, German, Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Estonian,\u201d says Rafael Galupa, a postdoc in the Crocker group at EMBL and an editor for Native Scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Galupa started working with Native Scientist while he was living in Paris. \u201cA Portuguese teacher living in Paris heard about Native Scientist on the radio news. She wondered: \u2018Why don\u2019t we have this here?\u2019 So she contacted the project and they found someone who would organise it in Paris,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhen I took over, an Italian and a Polish scientist at my institute became interested in organising workshops as well, just by hearing about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Native Scientist relies on the work of these volunteers: enthusiasts who want to share their work with children in their native language. Participants receive training through webinars<\/a>, where members of Native Scientist brief them on how to simplify their topics or how to present sensitive topics, for example chemotherapy, in a child-friendly manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Native
The first Native Scientist workshop in Heidelberg PHOTO: Mariana Alves\/EMBL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first workshop in Heidelberg<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The workshop on 22 May was the first to be held in Heidelberg, organised by Mariana Alves, a PhD student at EMBL and a Native Scientist Project Manager for Portuguese.The volunteers included EMBL scientists Sandra Correia, a Research Technician in the Ellenberg group, Ana Neves, a PhD student in the K\u00f6hler group, and Carolina Ara\u00fajo Sousa, <\/strong>a PhD student in the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit, along with two volunteers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and one from the European Space Agency (ESA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI decided to participate because I really like the whole idea of science outreach: sharing knowledge with society to increase awareness and critical thinking, as well as to stimulate others to follow a scientific career,\u201d says Ara\u00fajo Sousa. \u201cAnd, as I expected, the Native Scientist workshop was a really great experience. It was very gratifying to see how much the students were interested and how willing they were to participate in the experiment that I proposed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Correia feels very happy about her first Native Scientist workshop, too. \u201cKids get easily excited about science and have so many questions that time flies,\u201d she says. \u201cIn the end, I felt that just being present and available to talk to them was the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what do the children say? Lucas (8) and Isabella (6) were excited to have learned about the brain. \u201cI really liked that scientists took their time to come to us, and allowed us to try things like the microscope,\u201d says Lucas. \u201cYes, that was great!\u201d, says Isabella. The older students enjoyed the workshop, too: Bruno (13) especially liked the session about planets. \u201cThose were interesting things to know about,\u201d he says. \u201cThis workshop allowed me to ask questions to an expert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodrigues, the student\u2019s teacher, feels that the scientists made a real effort to reach the students and consider the different age groups at the school. \u201cThese children are very curious,\u201d says Rodrigues, \u201cand today they were asking questions and making comments that are different from the usual \u2013 you can see that they\u2019re interested!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n