Science teachers flock to open day at UQ

The Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Queensland has been swamped by secondary school staff wanting to attend its inaugural 'teach the teachers' day.

More than half the applicants had to be turned away due to a limit of 30 teachers for the day of lectures, workshops and experiments next Saturday, March 21.

'The response has been just fantastic,' Associate Director Professor David James said. 'Depending on how this day goes we might well need to hold another in six months time.'

Professor James said the idea arose out of concern at government cuts to university and research spending - cuts which seemed to be impacting especially harshly in the area of science.

'This appears to be sending a bad message to young people, basically telling them they would have to be out of their minds to embark on a science career,' he said.

Professor James said one means of countering this negative message was to re-excite young people about science, and the best way of achieving that was by enthusing their teachers.

'We need to get high school students back into the fold. We want to attract motivated and talented young people into careers in science,' he said.

Senior research fellow Dr Rick Sturm has put together the day's program which begins at 8.30am, includes lunch and is set to finish around 4.30pm. About 10 Centre staff, including senior academics, are volunteering their time to help make the event a success.

The visiting teachers will attend lectures, practical sessions and workshops covering a range of subjects such as proteins, genetics and DNA fingerprinting.

Based in the biochemistry teaching laboratories, they will also have the chance to try out some simple experiments using trial kits donated by Bio Rad.

The company sells a range of reasonably-priced scientific kits for use in secondary schools and science teachers at Saturday's open day will be shown how to use two of them.

For further information, contact Dr Rick Sturm (telephone 3365 1831).