Audio Transcript

Published: 2 Jun 2017
APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2017, June 2). Embedding language, culture and risk taking into science lessons [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education. https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/embedding-language-culture-and-risk-taking-into-science-lessons/

Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education.

[00:00:00]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:17]
Ben Newsome: Becoming a changemaker in your classroom and school is something we all wish to be as teachers. In this interview, I catch up with two brilliant educators, Maddie Scott-Jones and Louka Parry from the phenomenally successful Education Changemakers team. This is a team that works with schools in multiple countries to help teachers become the edu-preneurs that drive classroom innovation.

[00:00:40]
Ben Newsome: Look, these guys hail from Melbourne but they’re constantly on the go, and luckily enough, we were able to grab Maddie and Louka just for a short time to have them share their insights on indigenous science education, why getting messy in class is not a bad thing, let’s be honest, it’s not a bad thing, plus why modelling failure can be just one of the key things that can drive classroom success. Look, for the Education Changemakers, it’s all about getting things done.

[00:01:03]
Announcer: This is the FizzicsEd podcast.

[00:01:05]
Ben Newsome: G’day and welcome again to another FizzicsEd podcast. My name is Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and look, I’m really excited this week to introduce you to two of our friends from the Education Changemakers. This team works so hard to work with teachers, not only in Australia, but all over the globe, and their job is to drive innovation in school leadership and learning design. Our friends this week, very much are Maddie and Louka, and they bring a bucketload of experience to the table, and I thought you’d like to know just a little bit about them, and they’ll help frame why we chat about what we chat about and why they think the way they do.

[00:01:42]
Ben Newsome: So, look, firstly, Maddie is the Director of Communities at the Education Changemakers. There she’s built a global network of a thousand teachers who are incredibly passionate and really driven in their own schools. She works with many early career educators to support their best teaching practice. She practices what she preaches, before she was the Education Changemakers, in her own previous teaching, she created, well, change in her school where children were able to learn to embrace failure, and that does come up in this chat, as well as increase their own ability to have some resilience in their entrepreneurial journey, which is quite interesting. So that gave her a chance to become a judge at the National Science Talent Search. She’s spoken at many conferences all over Australia. And in her time as a teacher, she was able to support her own students to win the National Maths Talent Quest.

[00:02:26]
Ben Newsome: You’ll also meet with Louka. He is the Director of Programmes at Education Changemakers. He’s quite a talented individual because, you know, this man, he knows five languages, like fluently knows five languages, and he was promoted to being a principal at only 27 years old. He was named as a South Australian Inspirational Public Secondary Teacher of the Year even. Look, Louka has spoken with a whole bunch of audiences all over Australia and that’s including the Federal Treasury at the BET conference, leading educators across the planet, Education We Want, and Microsoft, and more. So, you’re gonna get a lot out of this interview, and I hope you enjoy it.

[00:03:04]
Announcer: You’re listening to the FizzicsEd podcast. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop at your school? We love seeing students get excited about science, and you will too. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au and click on schools for more info.

[00:03:19]
Ben Newsome: So, Maddie and Louka, welcome to the FizzicsEd podcast.

[00:03:22]
Louka Parry: Great. Thanks for having us.

[00:03:23]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Thank you.

[00:03:24]
Ben Newsome: I’m really happy to have you guys around. I mean, you’ve been running around, jeez, not even just in your local state or country, you fly around the world doing stuff. I mean, could you give I guess the listeners a bit of an idea of what is it that you actually do?

[00:03:38]
Louka Parry: Well, currently Maddie and I both, you know, working for Education Changemakers and it’s an organisation that tries to support teacher-led innovation. We believe that most teachers get it. They know that education needs to shift as we see really rapid shifts in the economy and lots of disruption throughout society. But what we’re not often equipped with is the kind of the how-to process. So, that’s what EC does. It’s basically travel around the globe and support great teachers, great educators to try to make them even more effective in their roles, to make more impact, to really transform learning communities for, you know, for students, but also for staff and more broader than that.

[00:04:09]
Louka Parry: So, even just today, we’ve got our two co-founders, Dave and Aaron, they’re over in the Middle East, working with school leaders from across the Middle East and Africa. And, you know, we’re heading over to Adelaide tomorrow, we’re over in Sydney next week over your way. So, it’s really exciting work because we get to work with what are, you know, foundationally really good people and that is teachers, you know, people that really care about the learning of their kids.

[00:04:38]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, and I’ve met some of these motivated teachers, motivated is like an understatement for the people that you work with, I mean, last year at EC Week, isn’t it? That big gathering in Melbourne that we had and some of the people had phenomenal ideas around all types of ways of engaging their kids in school and their communities was unreal. Gotta be an exciting job.

[00:05:00]
Louka Parry: Yeah, look, we are really, really lucky. I mean, we build capacity in others, we’re still teachers, but educators, really, it’s just helping people to take that next step wherever they may be in their leadership or in their teaching or in how comfortable they are with innovation, whatever it might be.

[00:05:13]
Ben Newsome: And you can see it coming through too. Like you yeah, as you said, you both are still, you know, you’re teachers, you’re just going from school to school, place to place. And so, I guess, I kind of looking at this, I mean, this is a science education podcast. I know you guys do a lot of teaching lots of different ways and like for example, like Maddie, you trained as a high school teacher, when did you start this sort of thing?

[00:05:34]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Start teaching?

[00:05:35]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, so start teaching. What got you into this type of job?

[00:05:38]
Maddie Scott-Jones: So I actually started off studying medicine when I was back living in New Zealand at Auckland University and to be honest, I think one of the things that made me dislike medicine so much were the people that I was studying with. There was this incredibly sort of competitive atmosphere amongst the cohort and I was just sitting in a lecture theatre one day looking around and had the realisation that I didn’t necessarily want to be spending the rest of my professional life with my peers and decided to switch out of medicine and move into studying biology and psychology with a view to trying out teaching.

[00:06:11]
Maddie Scott-Jones: And I thought, oh I might do it for, you know, a year or two and then I’ll head back over and study clinical psychology, but I just fell in love with education. And yeah, haven’t looked back since. I’ve been in Melbourne now for seven years and yeah, I can’t imagine doing anything other than education to be honest.

[00:06:38]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, we often joke with our educators that we’ve broken you. You can never go back.

[00:06:44]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Yes. Exactly.

[00:06:45]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Um, Louka, where’d you come from? What got you into teaching?

[00:06:50]
Louka Parry: So I sort of grew up in the bustling metropolis of Adelaide and I was quite lucky, my family moved overseas just as I finished high school. I was one of those kids that you know, I was kind of jack of all trades but master of none, you know, I kind of did a whole range of different subjects and was engaged in a whole range of different ways. But, you know, travelling through Europe and living overseas for a couple of years, it kind of it changes you. And I came back really thinking, I want to make a significant contribution to the world. I did want to be a salesman for a little while, a real estate agent, but I again, I had, like Maddie, I had another realisation that I never want to have to sell something I don’t believe in.

[00:07:35]
Louka Parry: And I think in education, we are all in sales, but what we’re selling is ultimately, you know, a brighter future for the people that we serve, for the young people that we work with, for our colleagues, for our communities. So, I came back from overseas, kind of slightly changed, and studied education and ended up actually one of the most remote communities in Australia, in a place called Mimili, which is on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, the APY lands for short. And that’s 15-hour drive from my front door in Adelaide. So in many respects, it was like being overseas, different language, different culture, you know, driving into a community of 300 people and for the first time in my life, I was in the minority, you know, I looked different, I had different skin colour because this was an Anangu community, an Aboriginal community. And so I stayed there for five and a half years in total.

[00:08:16]
Louka Parry: Which is I think which is really important. I mean, some of the averages around how long teachers stay in remote and challenging communities are pretty atrocious, for a whole range of factors, you know, it’s about seven months is what the data used to be in the territory in particular. So again, that was another transformative process and we did some really great work. We had a great team there. I became the principal after four years as well, which wasn’t the initial plan, but I learned the local languages as well, Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara. And you know, obviously a lot of my work now as an educator is informed by that journey.

[00:08:51]
Ben Newsome: This is one of the things I was really excited about getting you guys on this podcast because clearly everyone can hear this, Louka’s a very much a languages expert. I mean, you’re multilingual. Well beyond what I’d be able to do. Maddie, you’ve very much been heavily involved in science in lots of ways. And I think about what happens in a classroom, whether it’s a high school science lab or a primary lab. It’s it is, regardless, it’s still language-based no matter what.

[00:09:15]
Ben Newsome: And just getting your perspectives about how teaching science is very much a narrative and how we can get it across to kids who really are just disconnected with that narrative, how that goes. I mean, what have you seen happen with I actually I’m curious from both of you as to what trials, tribulations, and in-betweens have you had trying to get kids to just understand what’s going on in their world?

[00:09:39]
Louka Parry: Well, I might go first, Maddie. I think when I walked into, you know, Mimili school as a middle school teacher and I really I was a teacher of everything then. I taught numeracy, mathematics, and even science and I wasn’t a science trained person necessarily. It became very clear to me that unless this is engaging and actually taps into the current realities of the kids here, the audience, they are not gonna engage. So, I learned to become a very engaging teacher very quickly. And I did that really by saying, well, what matters to these kids? What’s the hook of the lesson here? How does this attach to their world? And I would use every trick in the book. You know, I’d pull out the guitar, we’d look at clips online, we’d make sure that everything was really as interactive as possible, using technology as well, which is another passion of mine.

[00:10:24]
Louka Parry: And that’s kind of how I’ve figured this that’s how I got across to the kids, and also discovered what it was they were really passionate about because in a remote community like that, at worst, the school can be a western institution that has no connection to life, and at best, it can be a flourishing community where people see their identity and really becoming empowered around operating in their own indigenous and cultural sphere and linguistic sphere as well. But then also being able to connect with some of the changes happening further afield across Australia or even globally as well.

[00:11:00]
Louka Parry: So, for me, it was saying, okay, inert knowledge or abstract knowledge, that’s important. But the key, you know, the entry point to that is the question now about their own world. Or, look at this, this is really interesting, how does that actually happen? Let’s look at some of the scientific principles behind that. Those sorts of hook to the lesson, you know, the first three minutes of every lesson, I found were the key time to really set up for the learning of however long the lesson block was. So that was one of my most profound learnings as a practitioner, I suppose.

[00:11:28]
Ben Newsome: I bet. And sort of just throwing that to Maddie, I guess the teaching the abstract is a mission in science. I mean, whether you’re talking about atoms or air pressure, it’s just some of this stuff is invisible to kids and really difficult to work with. I mean, what sort of things, Maddie, have you seen that just seems to grab kids’ attention and get them to understand that these things really do work?

[00:11:51]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Mm. Yeah, I totally agree with Louka in that the, you know, the relevance to one’s life or one’s experience is absolutely key to that deep engagement with science. And the way that, you know, this works best is when we can give students an opportunity to see it, to feel it, to hear it, and to, so to really experience that in the classroom through a range of hands-on activities. I think, we were studying cell division, in year 11 Biology, and being able to give them slides that had, you know, the chromosomes splitting and you know, working their magic and the stages of that cell division taking place. So, students were able to look and actually see these things happening in onion cells was vital for their understanding.

[00:12:28]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Or when I was teaching observational learning in psychology, and being able to give students the opportunity to experience what that feels like by building balloon animals. You know, just giving, yeah, I think that giving them those hands-on experiences, really helps to break it down and for them to to understand the relevance a little bit better.

[00:13:01]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I mean, I must say, I’ve run a half-day workshop once on science of balloons. There’s so much you can actually do. I know, like we’ve certainly got a collaboration coming up, which is going to involve some science with balloons too. It’s going to be a lot of fun. There’s yeah, it’s kind of think about what happens in the classroom, there’s so many awesome things that have to happen. And they don’t have to be fantastically explosive, large, and over the top. They can be small and simple. And they do grab kids’ attention without a doubt. I mean, speaking of grabbing kids’ attention, what’s just the most awesome, most Okay, I’m not a language guy, then I just funniest thing, what’s the best thing that you’ve seen happen in front of kids that gone, you know what, I’d just do that again and again and again and again.

[00:13:46]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Um, it would have to be something that would make a lot of mess, I think. I can’t I can’t think of a particular example. Bring out the slime, hey?

[00:13:52]
Ben Newsome: But yeah.

[00:13:53]
Maddie Scott-Jones: Just um, you know, I think that’s it holds us back sometimes from going out and doing something really wild and exciting is just, you know, thinking about how much clearing up there’s going to be afterwards, but we really need to sort of break through that barrier because you’ve got, you know, essentially 30 little hands or, you know, 60 hands that can help you clean up afterwards as well. Do you have an example, Louka?

[00:14:21]
Louka Parry: Yeah, look I’ve got a few. Well, a very simple one, I suppose from that context was everyone getting in a bus and driving out to a place of spiritual significance or cultural significance, and then taking that direct experience and bringing all the scientific understandings into it. Because again, even our view of science is from a particular paradigm, and that’s something that I learned, you know, a lot of indigenous communities across Australia have been practicing science just from different perspectives for a very long time.

[00:14:52]
Louka Parry: So, that’s what we would often do is we’d have that, what’s the big catalyst of this entire unit? And usually it was going out in a bus and everyone getting dirty and cooking something or going hunting and then looking at, you know, the time of day or the seasons, or the particular biology of this plant and dig down and pull out, you know, witchetty grub and eat one of them and I mean, it’s just pretty those sorts of experiences, I think they’re so memorable and they map so well.

[00:15:17]
Ben Newsome: Oh, they’re fantastic. I mean, I totally agree. Like when we’ve been running into a lot, the National Indigenous Science Education Programme at Macquarie University, they do a lot of work with the Chifley High School students in Western Sydney. Kids up in Casino High School as well, embedding science and culture together is unreal. And frankly, the elders know so much and and just giving them a forum to speak is outstanding, especially when you’re working with kids who that’s who they respect and want to look up to and listen to, that you might as well tap that knowledge, absolutely.

[00:15:47]
Louka Parry: Yeah, exactly right.

[00:15:48]
Ben Newsome: And actually flipping this, we’ve all done it, we’ve all had these lessons that just gone completely pear-shaped, right? Really. Is there any time like you’ve gone, you know what, I’ve got this wicked lesson, it’s gonna work, we know it’s gonna work, and turns out not in the slightest in any way. Have you think back to the time where you’re doing any hands-on workshops, activities, or anything with students around science that just, you know what, it was a complete clanger and probably shouldn’t try that one again.

[00:16:16]
Maddie Scott-Jones: We were um, when I was teaching year eight science, we wanted to help the students understand the safety rules that we had in place in the laboratory. And so, what we did was we got them to make a horror clip about all the things that could go wrong in the science lab. We had fake blood everywhere, we had broken glass, there were eyeballs made out of ping-pong, you know, table tennis balls that had popped out. I remember yeah, we had all of the things in place like we had gloves that the kids had to use to pick up the broken glass.

[00:16:50]
Maddie Scott-Jones: So, so that they could actually use it in their film, but there’s yeah, there’s always the one who doesn’t or doesn’t understand the instructions or chooses not to follow them at the time. We had a small incident with a little bit of broken glass encountering someone’s skin at one stage, but you know, it was all fine in the end. But I remember that being like just the irony of making these safety videos and trying to follow safety procedures in making them, but it not all going to plan.

[00:17:20]
Ben Newsome: Oh, certainly better than just a poster on a wall.

[00:17:22]
Maddie Scott-Jones: And one kid sacrificed and at the end of the day. You know.

[00:17:27]
Ben Newsome: Uh is it is it statistical error or not? No, I get what you mean. No, it is, it’s a tough thing. And actually safety videos, I mean, you see this happen even with just yeah, it’s hard not to jump onto a flight these days and see airlines competing for the best safety video. You want to grab attention, why not? I mean like both your roles at Education Changemakers are stunning. You get to do a lot of cool stuff. And I just out of interest, I mean, what’s the coolest thing you’ve been able to do in the time you’ve been there?

[00:17:58]
Louka Parry: Um, I think for me, it’s probably working in Latin America. Um, obviously, I’m a languages sort of guy. I’ve got a master’s in applied linguistics, and I studied Spanish as an adult at Flinders University. So, one of the cool things I get to do in my current role is lead our work in Spanish in Mexico and the Dominican Republic so far. So, that’s just such a cognitive challenge more than anything else. Because, you know, just as we know as teachers, you know, when you’re on your feet and you’re teaching, you’re trying to inspire and engage and equip, it’s really it’s you know, it’s emotional labour, it’s exhausting work.

[00:18:32]
Louka Parry: And then so when I do that in my non-native language, um that’s even more difficult, but it’s incredibly exciting, not least of all because the context there do have their unique qualities to them. And the work is I think really important. I mean, if there’s something that’s helpful and it’s a process like the changemaker journey that we share through our work, that people then take and then use in their schools and that helps them to get somewhere where they’re trying to go as a team, that’s absolutely brilliant. So, it’d be me, you know, flying into Mexico and saying ‘Buenos días a todos’ and taking it from there. It’s kind of exciting stuff.

[00:19:04]
Maddie Scott-Jones: I think um, for me we won a grant at the start of this year through the Federal Government, supporting women in STEM and entrepreneurship, and we’re developing a changemaker programme specifically for female STEM educators here in Victoria. And I read a horrific statistic that 13% of the students studying STEM subjects at VCE level across Australia, or which is the sort of year 12 level across Australia, are women or are girls. So, there’s a huge gap there and we reckon that some of our female educators will have some nifty ideas to help bridge that gap.

[00:19:38]
Maddie Scott-Jones: And um, yeah, so I’m really looking forward to, we had over 100 applications for the programme and as a result have a fantastic group, sort of narrowed down this brilliant group of really passionate STEM educators who are ultimately going to change the game for the girls that they teach and the women in their communities. So, I’m really looking forward to that all kicking off this year.

[00:20:07]
Ben Newsome: That’s awesome. Look, you’ve got, I feel like, you know when everyone says I’ll put it on the back burner, I feel like you’ve got racks and racks of back burners with different things going on. I mean, that’s an awesome initiative, and well done on getting that funding too. I mean, hopefully, and knowing what you guys do, it’ll grow beyond your initial cohort too and become, you know, a whole another beast. Is there anything else that’s coming up on the horizon, you’re going, you know what, this is cool, really can’t wait to sink our teeth into it?

[00:20:32]
Louka Parry: Well, I do have to say, and you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, Sam Harth, who is our director of learning design and events, is putting together with our team, an incredible week of learning. You know, we’ve been running a conference since 2014, which we’ve called the EC 14, EC 15, EC 16 conference series. But this year, we decided to, you know, really step it up and do an entire week. So bringing together some really exciting different communities of learners from all across Australia and some international guests as well.

[00:21:05]
Louka Parry: And our conference is across two of those days, the Wednesday, Thursday. And again, it’s just it’s pretty inspiring stuff, seeing passionate teachers and leaders come together and share their stories of change and all their failures as well. But of course, as we know as teachers, every failure is a learning opportunity.

[00:21:29]
Ben Newsome: Oh, absolutely, I just spoke with Adam Selinger from the Children’s Discovery Centre, and we’re talking about how he actually deliberately rigs his experiments occasionally to fail, so that kids can pick it apart. That’s interesting. I’m like, good on you, I mean, it takes guts, but you know what, the kids learn more.

[00:21:45]
Louka Parry: Yeah. Absolutely. And also gives a sense of what failure is. Because I think when you talk about the actual principles underpinning education, if it’s about getting the correct answers, that’s only a superficial level that we’re aiming for. Really, what we want are kids that can ask great questions. And then use whatever methodology they choose or whatever tool or strategy to try to find out those answers, particularly through the scientific method, of course.

[00:22:08]
Louka Parry: But if the questions we’re asking in the first place aren’t great questions, well then the answers aren’t going to be that inspiring either. So and particularly right now, I mean, if you look around the world, there are so many different challenges that this young generation is going to really have to work together to solve. Science education, I can’t imagine a more important time for people to be really engaging with it at a deep level.

[00:22:32]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I agree. And then I kind of at that sort of thinking, I mean, if you had right now three or so brand new teachers arriving from uni about to start their first week in science teaching, what advice would you give them?

[00:22:48]
Maddie Scott-Jones: I would encourage them to be courageous and to try things that they don’t think they’re capable of succeeding with. To embrace failure in their classroom and so to give those big-picture ideas or those really challenging projects or scary-looking experiments a go because even if they don’t work, that’s all part of the scientific method anyway. And it also models learning for your students and for your learners. And sets up an environment where making mistakes is okay, which is as we’ve said, absolutely crucial to the learning process itself anyway.

[00:23:27]
Ben Newsome: Awesome. Look, thanks so much. And look, I really appreciate your time coming in for this podcast. Absolutely. And look, undoubtedly, there’ll be some people who might want to, you know, reach out and touch base with you. So I mean, how can they get in touch?

[00:23:40]
Louka Parry: Uh, well, just probably jump on our website, educationchangemakers.com, and there’s a get in touch tab there. There’s also some of the really exciting work that we’re lucky to do around the globe with great people that are teachers and leaders. And we’re always looking at yes, you’re quite right, there’s lots of back burners currently on the boil.

[00:24:00]
Louka Parry: Um, and we’re also really lucky to have some really great partners, like Fizzics, frankly. So checking out that kind of work and also just being able to take, you know, step out of a school and look at, you know, what is happening across the globe here. What are these really global movements that are trying to transform not just science education but education as a whole construct. That’s kind of exciting stuff. So, jump onto the website, we’re on Facebook as well, of course, Education Changemakers. And then you can get us on Instagram and Twitter. We’re pretty well everywhere.

[00:24:28]
Ben Newsome: No worries. And we’ll put that all in the show notes as well so people can get a hold of you and harass you as needed. But look, much appreciated, guys. Look, we no doubt we’ll catch up and worst case, we’ll catch up at, you know, the big EC 17, the big one down in Melbourne.

[00:24:43]
Louka Parry: Fantastic. Look forward to it, mate. Keep up the great work.

[00:24:47]
Announcer: This is the FizzicsEd podcast. We’re all about science, edtech, and more. To see 100 fun free experiments you can do with your class, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelt F I Z Z I C S and click 100 free experiments.

[00:25:05]
Ben Newsome: What a fantastic interview with Maddie and Louka from the Education Changemakers. These guys have worked so hard with teachers and principals and district coordinators and regional managers, just to be able to get really just learning in general pumping at their schools, and they really do a fantastic job. Thank you very much for coming along aboard the FizzicsEd podcast. Now, we need to go through our top three learnings, and this is critical because there’s so much that we can learn from these guys, and one of them is such a small little thing, but gee, it makes a difference.

[00:25:40]
Ben Newsome: Learning number one: Don’t worry about cleaning up. Too often, it’s easy to not do the messy experiment. You know, let’s be honest, I mean, sometimes you just don’t want to have to deal with a headache, you don’t want to have to deal with the additional time required to clean up an experiment or two. But you kind of think of it from the student’s perspective, they’re missing out. They read about these experiments on the web or in a book, or they see it on a TV show, and they go, oh, I’d just love to try this out. But they’re not allowed to.

[00:26:20]
Ben Newsome: It’s not that often we can think of ourselves as teachers that, yeah, they’ll just do it at home. But there are plenty of times where I’ve met students where they’re told they’re just not allowed to get messy, they can’t get their hands messy, they can’t get their feet or shoes or shirt or whatever messy for fear of, I’m not even sure what the fear is in some ways. As an alternative, perhaps allow for, you know, it doesn’t have to always be messy, but get an experiment where the kids can spend time afterwards cleaning up. Because that’s actually a learning outcome. Too often we can clean up for kids because hey, either we can do it, or the cleaners can do it, or their parents can do it. But I think from a global perspective, the students eventually become adults, and if we teach them to clean up after themselves, this is a good thing, and I’d rather not restrict their learning because of mess.

[00:27:00]
Ben Newsome: Obviously, within reason, don’t do the food colouring on your very good carpet. Do it outside. Yeah, but if you’re in a school that just doesn’t have outdoor spaces, find a way around this. Can you do this experiment in buckets which have tarps around them? What can you do to make this better for the kids so they can really get their hands messy, because in some cases, it’s their only chance to do it.

[00:27:35]
Ben Newsome: Learning number two for me, and it especially came from Louka being a language expert, is try and embed not only language but culture into your classroom. Teaching science, obviously, you know, science has a series of facts usually proven by a whole bunch of repeated evidence, you know, there is a scientific method and about how we know how the world works. However, depending on where you’re from, maybe the narrative that you heard only comes from your particular culture. I’ve had the privilege of having a chat with a number of Aboriginal elders who know a bucketload about the science of plants, the science of soil, the science of animals, their astronomy is outstanding. They just use different words and different stories around it, but nonetheless, they know a lot. And we should respect that, and it doesn’t have to be your local indigenous culture. If you’re connecting via web conference to an overseas place, it’d be interesting to hear what other people’s take on migration patterns or whatever it is that you’re teaching around science. It’s worth that time. And you’ll actually see that science as a human endeavour really looks at this in various curriculums as well.

[00:28:20]
Ben Newsome: Final thing, and this is by no means the only thing, but certainly I’d like to highlight, that point number three is take a risk. I know they talked about, Maddie talked about getting people involved with when you first start out in a science room, that it’s worth trying things out and being okay with failure. Kids do learn from you learning from failure too. It’s not always have to be perfect, and the more you speak with people around the place, the more that you’ll hear that some of the best lessons have come from a complete mistake. As long as you plan out the safety factors and allowing for whatever, you know, your timing and your lesson outcomes, but take a risk, and it doesn’t have to be about what the experiment is.

[00:28:57]
Ben Newsome: Have a play with different learning styles and different ways of delivering the same bit of content, and the kids will be better for it.

[00:29:21]
Announcer: Thanks for listening to the FizzicsEd podcast. Love your science? We do too. Here’s this episode’s education tip of the week.

[00:29:30]
Ben Newsome: Grab your pencil and get ready to make some notes. What I’d like you to try this week or the next couple of weeks, is survey your students about what they actually know about science, what they think science actually is about. Get them to get a pen, get them to get a piece of paper, and get them to draw what they think a scientist looks like. And what you might find is that kids will inevitably draw someone in a lab coat. Often, when they draw this person in a lab coat, not always, but often, you will see them draw it as a man, sadly, and often old, often with crazy wiry hair, doing some crazy experiment with chemicals and there might be mess and there’ll be explosions all around this caricature of a scientist.

[00:30:10]
Ben Newsome: When you speak with any other scientist, or any other reasonably well-educated person, you’ll see that is just not the case what happens in real science. Scientists don’t just wear lab coats, scientists aren’t just men, scientists aren’t just old. They don’t just do chemical explosions all the time. They work in every industry. From materials scientists, like designing different plastics and polymers, through to working in biology and working out fish populations to help support local fisheries, through to astronomy or mining or whatever. There’s so many industries that are supported by scientists and they just aren’t the classic mad scientist view that is portrayed over and over again.

[00:30:52]
Ben Newsome: So uh, there’s a challenge. Get the kids to spend some time to write down what they think a scientist does and what they look like, and then have a class discussion. Really delve deep into this, and you might be surprised what they might come up with. And I’d encourage you to go onto the Fizzics Education website because you’ll find an article where we wrote about kids’ misconceptions on the way we, you know, science actually works. So go to Fizzics Education, again, spelt really badly, F I Z Z I C S education.com.au. And just type in kids’ perceptions.

[00:31:31]
Ben Newsome: When you type in kids’ perceptions, you will find an article which goes through a whole bunch of different things that kids have generally said to us during our time teaching science to hundreds and hundreds of schools and thousands and thousands of students over the years. Everything from astronomy misconceptions through to chemistry misconceptions, colour and vision, electricity, energy, forces, you name it, it’s there. You’d be surprised what kids actually think when they’re coming into your classroom. It’s really worth working these things out prior to you teaching a particular lesson topic.

[00:32:00]
Announcer: This is the FizzicsEd podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love, from our website. Just search Be Amazing book. It’s available in hard copy and e-book. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelt F I Z Z I C S.

[00:32:21]
Ben Newsome: Going beyond what kids think science is and what scientists look like, it’s also important to think about how the kids can work as learners in your classroom. How are you facilitating this, or are you the lecturer upfront? So I thought you might like to listen to a small excerpt from an interview we did previously with Isabelle Kingsley, who is from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences from Sydney. She had a really interesting take about how she thinks teachers could be within a classroom, not so much as the giver of all knowledge, but more of a facilitator. Take a listen.

[00:32:51]
Isabelle Kingsley: When I started teaching, I thought, well, I’m supposed to know all the answers. Then I’m supposed to teach this knowledge that I have into these empty vessels that don’t have the knowledge. Now, I have a completely different view of education, and it’s not about that at all. It’s about co-learning. You know, being part of the learning process along with the students.

[00:33:14]
Isabelle Kingsley: You don’t have to know the answer. You don’t have all the knowledge. They have sometimes more knowledge than we do on some things. So it’s about facilitating an experience and coaching them or teaching them how to learn rather than teaching them stuff they should know. And just going on that journey with them, I think is really important.

[00:33:38]
Ben Newsome: Isn’t that great? I mean, what Isabelle has to say is you hear it a lot from a lot of teachers and professional development programmes, that it really is about kids learning how to learn. It’s not these days just about us sprouting facts to them and giving them a series of chapter readings and here’s the answers at the end. Nowadays, I’m finding many, many teachers are very much concerned about teaching kids how to learn and how to evaluate facts they’ve found in textbooks and websites. It’s so critical. Now, if you want to hear a bit more about that, check out the interview we did with Isabelle Kingsley in a previous episode. Just go onto the FizzicsEd podcast and check it out.

[00:34:12]
Announcer: Thanks for listening to the FizzicsEd podcast. Sign up now for our fortnightly email newsletter. It’s loaded with details on new experiments you can do, STEM teaching articles, new gadgets, exclusive offers, and upcoming events. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au, scroll to the bottom, and add your email.

[00:34:29]
Ben Newsome: So that just about wraps up yet another episode of the FizzicsEd podcast. Look, I’d really encourage you to jump on our website and check out all the blogs and articles, the free science experiments, there’s a lot of stuff that’s freely available and will help you in your classroom. Don’t forget to put a rating, if you can please, on iTunes, it certainly helps us out, and it’ll also help other teachers to discover that this podcast exists, and people can learn a bit about how to teach science further in classrooms and beyond.

[00:34:56]
Ben Newsome: Uh, next week, you’ll meet Vanessa Barratt from the Australian Botanic Garden in Mount Annan in South Western Sydney. There we’ll talk about, you know, creating, well, science festivals and so much more. And look, as always, may your science lessons be fun, make them informative, and please, grab your students’ imagination. My name’s Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the FizzicsEd podcast.

[00:35:19]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the core mission of Education Changemakers?

The Education Changemakers aim to support teacher-led innovation globally. Their mission is to help educators become more effective in their roles, make a greater impact, and ultimately transform learning communities for students and staff. They believe in empowering teachers to drive positive change within their schools and communities.

How can teachers make abstract scientific concepts relatable to students, especially in diverse contexts?

Both Louka and Maddie emphasise the importance of relevance and experiential learning. Louka highlights the need for teaching to be engaging and to tap into the current realities of students’ worlds, using their own questions and experiences as an entry point. Maddie advocates for hands-on activities that allow students to “see it, to feel it, to hear it” and truly experience science in the classroom. When concepts are connected to a student’s life or experience, it fosters deep engagement.

Why is it important for teachers to embrace and model failure in the classroom?

Embracing failure is seen as a crucial aspect of the learning process and scientific method. Maddie’s earlier work focused on helping children learn to embrace failure, and Louka states that “every failure is a learning opportunity.” The discussion highlighted that if education is solely about getting the correct answers, it operates at a superficial level. Instead, the goal is to cultivate students who can ask great questions. By modelling trying big ideas or challenging experiments, even if they don’t “work” as expected, teachers demonstrate that mistakes are acceptable and part of a continuous learning journey.

What role do culture and language play in effective science education?

Culture and language are integral to effective science education, particularly in diverse and Indigenous contexts. Louka shared his experience in a remote Aboriginal community where different languages and cultural spheres are prominent. He emphasised the importance of connecting scientific understanding with direct cultural experience and acknowledging that Indigenous communities have practised science for a very long time, albeit from different perspectives. This approach values students’ identities and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, enabling a more profound connection to global scientific concepts.

What advice would you give to new teachers starting their career in science education?

Maddie’s key advice for new teachers is to “be courageous” and try things they might not initially think they’re capable of. She encourages embracing failure in the classroom, giving big-picture ideas and “scary-looking experiments” a go. This approach is beneficial because even if experiments don’t yield expected results, it aligns with the scientific method. More importantly, it models learning for students, creating an environment where making mistakes is okay and seen as a crucial part of the learning process.

Extra Resources

Here are some associated articles and topics that may be of interest, based on the themes discussed in this podcast episode:

1. Integrating Indigenous Knowledge and Culture into Science Classrooms

Explore resources that delve into incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, knowledge systems, and languages into science curricula. This includes learning about traditional land management, astronomy, botany, and ecological understanding, as discussed by Louka Parry and Ben Newsome. Seek out organisations and programmes that facilitate collaboration between educators and Indigenous elders.

2. Fostering STEM Engagement in Girls and Women

Investigate initiatives and strategies aimed at bridging the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Maddie Scott-Jones highlighted the stark statistic of only 13% female participation in VCE-level STEM subjects in Australia. Resources in this area often focus on mentorship, role models, engaging teaching methodologies, and creating supportive learning environments for girls and women in STEM.

3. Learning from Failure: Practical Strategies for Science Classrooms

Delve into approaches that leverage mistakes and unexpected outcomes as powerful learning opportunities in science. This includes designing experiments that may not “work” as planned, encouraging student inquiry into why things failed, and creating a classroom culture where experimentation and iterative improvement are valued. The podcast discussed how modeling failure helps students develop resilience and critical thinking skills.