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Children targeted in research-awareness campaign
POLICY AND PEOPLE FEATURE
Children targeted in research-awareness campaign
2174
“MegaSearch responds to a need identified by science curriculum advisers and elementary school teachers”, says Bayers, “for quality Canadian content science materials at the grade five level—a level at which children are particularly receptive to the presentation of science as a positive subject and experience”. One of the researchers featured in one of the cartoons, Sultan Darwesh —who is working on Alzheimer’s disease—agrees. He told The Lancet that “as an educator” he is delighted to see, and take part in, “anything that enhances research as an important field”. Among the comments in this year’s elementary school teacher feedback were remarks such as: “the students loved the competition aspect and the experiments were a great hit and lots of fun”; and “the students recounted personal experiences with [the] disease. Discussions followed where facts replaced myths. I remember thinking, ‘This is a very positive experience.’” Other teachers, however, raised concerns—chiefly that the MegaSearch materials should be distributed to classrooms at the start of the school year rather than later in the autumn, to enable more teachers to incorporate them into their classroom curriculum. Other criticisms in the feedback received by Bayers included: “the experiments dealt with topics quite unrelated to [the] topics presented in the comic”; and “the design and layout of the overall schools package should more closely address the visual recognition skills level of grade five students”. Nevertheless, says Bayers, the project has allowed Dalhousie Medical School to engage children at an early age in the process, possibilities and collaborative nature of research and “to impress upon children how health and medical research make a positive difference to the lives of people”. Dalhousie Medical School
Medical Research Foundation, the en-to-eleven year olds aren’t Nova Scotia Health Research often targets for information camFoundation, and the CIHR, the paigns on medical research, but one school’s Communications Office Canadian medical school has been drew on the expertise of an advisory doing just that for more than 2 years. group consisting of elementary school MegaSearch—a cartoon-based project science curriculum experts (in Mount of Dalhousie University Medical Saint Vincent University’s teacher School in Halifax, Nova Scotia— education programme), elementary was created by the school’s school teachers, graduate student Communications Office to raise participants in the national Let’s Talk awareness of health and medical Science educational programme, and research among elementary schoolthe Medical School’s own Research aged children. Office. The cartoons, which cover subjects ranging from traumatic brain injury, rheumatoid arthritis, and Alzheimer disease to healthy body image and genetics, provide “quality Canadian content science materials” targeted at children at the grade five level (ie, age 10–11 years)—“a level at which children are particularly receptive to the presentation of science as a positive subject and experience”, according to Cindy Bayers, the Communications Manager for the Medical School. Bayers says that MegaSearch has MegaSearch cartoon on Alzheimer’s disease grown quickly from a The first, pilot issue of Halifax-area pilot project to an MegaSearch was distributed in annual production distributed to 400 October–November 2000; it has now elementary schools and 16 000 grade grown to include a web site five students in Nova Scotia as well as (http://www.medicine.dal.ca/mega to libraries across the province. search), research facts, games, and a Copies of the MegaSearch kits are competition in which grade five also distributed to all department classes across the province choose an heads in the Faculty of Medicine and experiment from four subjects to the nearby IWK Health Centre for selected by the MegaSearch team. display in their waiting rooms and The competitors, in teams of four or research areas. five students, experiment on subjects MegaSearch grew out of a national such as objects floating in salt water campaign in the late 1990s, spearor the sound-stopping properties of headed by the Medical Research different materials. They must then Council of Canada (now the write and present a report on their Canadian Institutes of Health work. The entire class from which Research; CIHR), entitled National the winning entry is selected gets a Health Research Awareness Week, tour of the Dalhousie Medical which involved universities and School, souvenir photographs and research associations from across certificates, and, perhaps most Canada that were participating in an importantly, the chance to meet both awareness-building and lobbying graduate students and researchers at scheme. In 2000, the Dalhousie Dalhousie Medical School and the Medical School decided that a local IWK Health Centre to learn why campaign promoting local scientists they chose science as a career and and research would be more effecwhat they do in their labs. tive. Supported by the Dalhousie
T
Doug Payne
THE LANCET • Vol 359 • June 22, 2002 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
Children targeted in research-awareness campaign
2174
“MegaSearch responds to a need identified by science curriculum advisers and elementary school teachers”, says Bayers, “for quality Canadian content science materials at the grade five level—a level at which children are particularly receptive to the presentation of science as a positive subject and experience”. One of the researchers featured in one of the cartoons, Sultan Darwesh —who is working on Alzheimer’s disease—agrees. He told The Lancet that “as an educator” he is delighted to see, and take part in, “anything that enhances research as an important field”. Among the comments in this year’s elementary school teacher feedback were remarks such as: “the students loved the competition aspect and the experiments were a great hit and lots of fun”; and “the students recounted personal experiences with [the] disease. Discussions followed where facts replaced myths. I remember thinking, ‘This is a very positive experience.’” Other teachers, however, raised concerns—chiefly that the MegaSearch materials should be distributed to classrooms at the start of the school year rather than later in the autumn, to enable more teachers to incorporate them into their classroom curriculum. Other criticisms in the feedback received by Bayers included: “the experiments dealt with topics quite unrelated to [the] topics presented in the comic”; and “the design and layout of the overall schools package should more closely address the visual recognition skills level of grade five students”. Nevertheless, says Bayers, the project has allowed Dalhousie Medical School to engage children at an early age in the process, possibilities and collaborative nature of research and “to impress upon children how health and medical research make a positive difference to the lives of people”. Dalhousie Medical School
Medical Research Foundation, the en-to-eleven year olds aren’t Nova Scotia Health Research often targets for information camFoundation, and the CIHR, the paigns on medical research, but one school’s Communications Office Canadian medical school has been drew on the expertise of an advisory doing just that for more than 2 years. group consisting of elementary school MegaSearch—a cartoon-based project science curriculum experts (in Mount of Dalhousie University Medical Saint Vincent University’s teacher School in Halifax, Nova Scotia— education programme), elementary was created by the school’s school teachers, graduate student Communications Office to raise participants in the national Let’s Talk awareness of health and medical Science educational programme, and research among elementary schoolthe Medical School’s own Research aged children. Office. The cartoons, which cover subjects ranging from traumatic brain injury, rheumatoid arthritis, and Alzheimer disease to healthy body image and genetics, provide “quality Canadian content science materials” targeted at children at the grade five level (ie, age 10–11 years)—“a level at which children are particularly receptive to the presentation of science as a positive subject and experience”, according to Cindy Bayers, the Communications Manager for the Medical School. Bayers says that MegaSearch has MegaSearch cartoon on Alzheimer’s disease grown quickly from a The first, pilot issue of Halifax-area pilot project to an MegaSearch was distributed in annual production distributed to 400 October–November 2000; it has now elementary schools and 16 000 grade grown to include a web site five students in Nova Scotia as well as (http://www.medicine.dal.ca/mega to libraries across the province. search), research facts, games, and a Copies of the MegaSearch kits are competition in which grade five also distributed to all department classes across the province choose an heads in the Faculty of Medicine and experiment from four subjects to the nearby IWK Health Centre for selected by the MegaSearch team. display in their waiting rooms and The competitors, in teams of four or research areas. five students, experiment on subjects MegaSearch grew out of a national such as objects floating in salt water campaign in the late 1990s, spearor the sound-stopping properties of headed by the Medical Research different materials. They must then Council of Canada (now the write and present a report on their Canadian Institutes of Health work. The entire class from which Research; CIHR), entitled National the winning entry is selected gets a Health Research Awareness Week, tour of the Dalhousie Medical which involved universities and School, souvenir photographs and research associations from across certificates, and, perhaps most Canada that were participating in an importantly, the chance to meet both awareness-building and lobbying graduate students and researchers at scheme. In 2000, the Dalhousie Dalhousie Medical School and the Medical School decided that a local IWK Health Centre to learn why campaign promoting local scientists they chose science as a career and and research would be more effecwhat they do in their labs. tive. Supported by the Dalhousie
T
Doug Payne
THE LANCET • Vol 359 • June 22, 2002 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.