By Karen Hornby, Science Specialist, National STEM Centre.
“I don’t like science. My favourite subject is English.”
“I don’t need science. I want a job in journalism or creative media.”
We’ve all heard comments like this, but how do we motivate these students and also help them to realise that a good understanding of science would greatly enhance their career opportunities in areas such as journalism, communications and creative media.
Why not introduce a topic based around cutting edge science or ethical issues with a quote from David Reay, Science Journalist for the Times?
“Every piece of research is based on the scientist saying, ‘I want to discover something new that makes an impact on the world’. We’re the people who have to turn that into copy and get the message across.”
Challenge your students to use their creative skills to present a complex scientific topic to the general public.
Science EXTRA! provides a case study (Students in Print) which shows how working with a local community newspaper can provide students with the opportunity to write up a science-based news story for publication. Rather than asking all students write their own article, you could encourage the class to work as a team to produce the news story. In addition, you could ask one of the journalists from the paper to visit the class to explain how to approach the task and provide guidance on research, writing, headline composition and graphic design.
You could also use elements of this resource from the Young Journalists Academy to prepare them for the task – the activities and film clips are taken directly from the highly prestigious and successful YJA Summer School, which focused on biomedical issues in the media in 2012.
Every year, the YJA has run an annual summer school for London state-school students who have the potential, but lack the ‘right contacts’, to break into journalism. Working with many of the leading journalists in the UK, over 90 per cent of graduates of the summer school, all from state schools, go on to do further work in the media. This should certainly grab the attention of students wanting a career in this field!
Along with activities, there are plenty of top tips and concrete pieces of advice from leading science journalists for writing and broadcasting about scientific issues.
Introduce the activities above with this film, in which freelance science writer Helen Carmichael talks about writing on a range of topics and for different audiences. She describes how she combines her knowledge of science with skills in researching and presenting information to produce an engaging science-based story.
“It’s your job as a journalist to find the interesting angle within any topic. So, for example, this is an article I wrote for a teenage magazine called Flipside that you might be familiar with. This was all about special effects in the movies. I talked to a couple of people who were making up special effects on movie sets for this article and what I realised as I spoke to them was you have to know a lot about science to actually be a good technician on a movie.”
After watching the film, you could provide plenty of different science articles for students to look at and work in groups to identify the key features of each style of publication – the English Department will be able to help you with teaching strategies for doing this!
A display illustrating the variety of careers in science communication can also capture students’ interest. They will be surprised to learn that qualifications in science lead to some great career opportunities in journalism and creative media.
This poster introduces producer/director Alex Tate who studied zoology at university and then took a Masters in Science Communication, with a focus on science media production. He now travels the world, combining his love of science with his skills in creative media. His varied job involves script writing, working with graphic designers, animation companies and music composers, not to mention winning a BAFTA!
