Capturing imaginations

Becky Parker introduces an initiative that allows school students to participate in scientific research

I am a passionate physics teacher and also director of a charitable organisation that supports teachers and students carrying out real science research in schools. While politicians and university admission systems may think otherwise, there is more to school science than A-level results. I want school students to see the excitement and opportunities beyond the curriculum. We have found that allowing students to design their own experiments and contribute to genuine scientific research inspires them in a way following a formulaic recipe to prove a 100-year-old constant never could. For work carried out under the umbrella of the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS), the answers are not in the back of the book, the apparatus is not laid out and the method isn’t foolproof. The students get to truly experience the ups and downs of life as a scientist.

Physics professor Lawrence Pinsky at the University of Houston, US, has heaped praised on our initiative: ‘If you can give students the thrill of discovery, it will be contagious, it will be addictive! It’s like the students are playing at being NASA or the European Space Agency; only they’re not playing, they’re doing the real thing.’