British Science Week
Published: 27 July 2016
With help from the MERP British Science Week bursary, PML and local partners ran a week long BSW exhibition at the Plymouth Museum called ‘What’s on the Menu? Life & death in the food web’. Targeted at KS2 students and based around the key MERP themes of food-webs and ecological trade-offs, a record 921 students took part in the interactive activities and received a packed goodie bag of further information. The PML activities took the form of creating 3D food-webs and learning about trophic cascades and the impact of overfishing.
Feedback on the event has been very good; teachers liked the way the event was organised with a variety of activities for pupils to engage with. Pupils were able to see a variety of different food chains and how they link together. Teachers were also very impressed with the staff and volunteers in particular how they were able to adjust their activities to suit the age range and ability of the audience, making sure that each age group understood the main message of the activities. The event supported a number of areas of the KS2 curriculum including food chains, habitats, the living world and their surroundings.
Feedback from the pupils showed that they liked the range of activities offered and the fact that ‘real scientists’ were talking to them. Teachers commented that they were surprised by some pupils who were normally very quiet in the classroom, actually thrived in this environment, demonstrating the value of this event for learning outside the classroom.
Teacher feedback
“The children were very engaged in all the activities. Worked well as a carousel.”
“Professionals leading groups – very organised and child friendly.”
“Event helped with Key Stage topics such as animals, habitats and food chains. Staff were very good.”
“We are going to look at the food chain and this helped the children think about that.”
“Perhaps some pre-events resources or ideas would be useful to use in school before the trip.”
“Follow up challenges or tasks would be great for the children to extend or consolidate learning back in the classroom.”
Related information
British Science Week