SAW Trust inspires for second year

On April 21st 2017, SynthSys welcomed Jenni Rant and the SAW Training team back to Edinburgh for our second annual training event bringing their innovative approach to teaching science to children using the power of words and pictures.

This year, thanks to support from Lorna Macdonald, Principal Officer Creative Learning for Schools and Lifelong at the City of Edinburgh Council, we had great participation from local primary schools for the entire day.

Jenni Rant (SAW lead and scientist) and colleagues Mike O’Driscoll (writer) and Chris Hann (poet) ran another inspirational workshop to show how a blended programme of fun hands-on science experiments coupled with imagery, poetry and art can convey in a meaningful way often complex science by harnessing a child’s natural curiosity and creativity.

At the end of the workshop we formed teams consisting of teacher, scientist, artist and writer got together to plan a themed workshop for seven primary school classes in the Edinburgh region.

We would like to extent our thanks to all the writers and artists who joined us for the day to help make the event such a success.

About the SAW Trust

You can find out more about the SAW Trust at www.sawtrust.org and follow them on Twitter @SAWTrust.

The SAW Trust was founded by Anne Osbourn @AnneOsbourn1 a practising scientist and currently Associate Research Director and Institute Strategic Programme Leader, Plant and Microbial Metabolism at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. She has an international reputation for her work on plants and plant diseases. She is an ardent advocate of science and scientists engaging more fully with society. Her passion is inspiring children about science, and she is fascinated by the processes of creativity and exploration that underpin both scientific and artistic endeavour.