dr dave lewis d.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk

Ethics in SchoolsEnhancing student employability through ethics-themed schools

outreach activities and open educational resources

Dr Dave Lewisd.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk

Institute of Membrane & Systems BiologyFACULTY 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

• Who thinks that this method is good?• Would you choose to prevent a disability in

your child?• Would you choose to abort your child because

it was disabled?

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)

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 schoolso Website vs. Open Educational Resourceso Biomedical topicso Wikio 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. Email D.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk