Stephen R Price, Ralph Levinson, Ruth Wheeldon (contributions from Thiago Costa Caetano, Newton de Figueiredo Filho, Adhimar Flávio Oliveira, Luciano Fernandes Silva, Institute of Physics and Chemistry Federal University of Itajubá, Brazil) (Division of Biosciences)

5 minute talk

Authentic experiences in Science are crucial to facilitating participation of marginalised groups in advanced science education. We took the approach of curating science experiences that do not involve laboratory work but instead focus on the collaborative and discursive aspects of contemporary research. We have exposed students of various ages from schools in the UK and in Cyprus to discussions of contemporary Biosciences research with a practicing scientist. Our analysis of the recorded sessions indicates several key features that correlate with rich student discussions. These include the presence of disruptor argumentation, often by female students, and that deeper discussions were found in groups from more socioeconomically challenged areas. Our experiences during this project and subsequent work in online widening participation activities prompt us to design hybrid activities which we propose to deliver to groups of school pupils in the UK and in Brazil.

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