About ScienceTwinning
ScienceTwinning is an online community linking scientists and teachers to bring cutting edge science into schools.
The Twinning Scientists with Teachers Program enables scientists from universities and research organisations to be linked or twinned with teachers of science from Reception - Year 12.
Exchanges will be established via email, phone, and/or personal contact. This 1:1 “pen-pal” arrangement will create informal professional development opportunities for both scientists and teachers.
The scheme is designed to allow the correspondence to take place without over-regulation or auditing to encourage open-ended and enthusiastic exchanges.
The Twinning Scientists with Teachers Program recognises that relationships are at the heart of learning. Scientists can register online with a description of their area of science research and interest. Teachers can then view these descriptions and register to be twinned with their selected scientists. These selections will then be coordinated at the website host, and then directed to both the scientists and teacher. The exchanges are then left to the individual teacher and scientist. Correspondence may vary: from the form of a letter written every month to day to day online email exchanges, or to a direct phone calls.
This twinning process will be teacher driven as this will best meet the immediate needs of the individual teacher. Teachers will have the opportunity to change their match according to their needs, but can only be matched with one scientist at any one time.
The Origin of Science Twinning
Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield envisaged the Twinning Scientists with Teachers Program and describes it as follows:
The Twinning Scientists with Teachers Program is a unique initiative, empowering teachers to be, once again, part of the wider scientific community. By staying in close contact with research scientists they will experience, first hand, the highs and lows of life in the laboratory. Moreover, they may be able to experience lab life during the vacations whilst, at the same time, hosting role-model graduates from time to time in their school.
The beauty of the Program is that it will be driven by the teachers and the Scientists themselves, with no audit regulation, or top-down directives. As with all relationships, some may well wither on the vine, but I can see no reason why the majority shouldn't flourish in their own way, and thereby enrich the lives of the researchers, scientists, the student and, above all, the school science teacher.
I am delighted to endorse this program as a major initiative to assist in the development and promotion of science in South Australia.
Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield
Director, Royal Institution, UK
Adelaide Thinker in Residence, 2004-2005
The Honourable Jane Lomax-Smith MP describes the initiative in the following media release:
If we are going to get more young people interested in science at school then we need to make lessons relevant to real life laboratories and careers in science.
There is no better way to do that than to match teachers with scientists to learn from one another and bring fresh new ideas into the classroom.
The scope of any twinning relationship can be small or large — from providing a direct source for questions from students and teachers, to allowing for possibilities like laboratory or school visits.
It will give teachers a chance to share their passion for science with another professional and boost their skills, experience and enthusiasm.
The program allows teachers to link the curriculum with cutting edge research and makes science more relevant and fun for students in the process.
Similarly, the program is hoping to provide scientists with practical knowledge about the current generations of young people in our schools.
More than 40 scientists already have registered for the program and we will be widely promoting it to schools so that teachers can take up the twinning opportunity.
We are working hard to reinvigorate science and mathematics in our schools and have introduced a $2.1m package of 14 initiatives, ranging from industry placements for teachers to mentoring.
The Honourable Jane Lomax-Smith MP
Minister for Education and Children's Services
Media Releases, 17-08-2005