Ethics in Schools Enhancing student employability through ethics-themed schools outreach activities and open educational resources Dr Dave Lewis Institute of Membrane & Systems Biology FACULTY OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Ethics, employability & National curriculum Ethics in the GCSE/GCE curriculum – “How Science works” Employers and employability skills Taught & extracurricular engagement activities  “Science and Society” final year research projects  Undergraduate internships

“Science & Society” projects Interactive, curriculum enhancing teaching session  Animal Experiments: Cruel and Unnecessary?  Playing God: Use and abuse of human genetic information  Olympics special: performance enhancing drugs  Creating super humans: Curing disease or enhancing performance?  Other non-ethics topics

Animal experiments: Cruel or necessary

Playing God

Ethical Sportsman

Healthy hearts

“Science & Society” projects Interactive, curriculum enhancing teaching session Primary or secondary Carousel and/or National Science Week Focus groups & evaluation Assessment & academic equivalence Guidance

Student reflections pre-session “Will undoubtedly have challenges…… KS4 pupils can be disruptive and unenthusiastic when faced with a ‘science lecture’…… many interesting and easily relatable aspects to engage…… interactive as possible……. level of detail required to make my presentation educational without overpowering the pupils Effective time management and a thorough plan.

Students reflections afterwards

“seriously doubt that an educational development or science and society could provide the same intellectual stresses and challenges as a lab based project” “should treat these alternative project topics with a great deal of caution, irrespective of whether the students "want" this sort of thing” “having marked Education/Science and Society projects in the last 2 years they do have the same potential for intellectual input/analysis as lab based projects” Colleagues External Examiners Feedback: Colleagues & external examiners “A truly exceptional project, a delight to read”

“Love to host again next year, because of the great impression this year's cohort made” Feedback: Schools

Extra-curricular engagement: Internships Educational research or curriculum development Public engagement  Faculty public engagement database  Sixth Form conference  Effectiveness of Faculty WP activities  Ethics in schools o Website vs. Open Educational Resources o Biomedical topics o Wiki o Re-purposing Science and Society projects

“Ethics in Schools” OER

Internships: Student reflections

Projects, internships & OERs Student  Curricular & extracurricular opportunities for public engagement  Academically equivalent  Employability skills Links with local / other schools Promoting science Excellent feedback High demand

Projects, internships & OERs Practicalities, barriers and benefits Academic standards and equivalence to other Final Year research projects Transferability or otherwise to other disciplines or Institutions Impact compared to other means of engaging young people Suggestions for development/expansion Questions to think about: Further details.