Education Resources Proposal

During the pandemic and lockdown, like many people in this industry, we have found work has been a little restricted at times. To fill time and help "keep the wolf from the door", individually we have been doing some supply teaching (substitute teaching for our US friends). Interesting and very fulfilling.

However, we have to say we have been more than a little disappointed by the standard of some of the education resources provided to us at various times as teaching aids by schools. In particular with regard to the sciences. We are not talking supplemental resources here, like "past papers", experiment design, or additional content. These were "lead the class" resources. They bored us, so they were hardly going to enthuse a class full of teenagers. This isn't meant as a criticism of the teaching industry. We know there are some great teachers and great resources out there. But we are going to be honest here. Some of this stuff given to lead a class with was just dull. To an extent, the resources schools have are the resources available due to budget restrictions. However, as a nation and an industry, we feel we can, and should, be doing better. A black and white text heavy photocopied book page for teaching plant respiration to 14 yr olds, or a book, that may have been updated 10-15 years ago to teach cellular structure, or worse still, black and white out of date images of dinosaurs, or plate tectonics, well... again just not really good enough if you ask us.

We appreciate we aren't being asked but we are going to try and do something that we know we can do and make some interesting and informative resources. In essence, as a good friend said, presently we seem to be using the same kind of resources we used 40-50 years ago with slightly better pictures and graphics. We can do better. We should be striving and working to do better.

We'll be putting our shoulder to the wheel on this now. We will be doing some grant applications and working with partners in both the UK and in the US on a proposal to create science and educational material we feel will help teachers to visualise the sciences for students. If you want to help or support, please get in touch.