Meeting scientists, developing knowledge and becoming a better teacher. Jon Hale on the SAPS teachers' summer school

By Mary Howell posted 12 days ago

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The Hawkhills venue for the Summer School. Credit: Jon Hale.

In 2022 I was fortunate enough to attend the SAPS Plant Science Summer School in York. It was a fantastic experience, and despite the plethora of online opportunities nothing can replace this in-person CPD.

There were only 6 teachers present, running in parallel to the undergraduate summer school over three and a half days. Like many biology teachers, I come from a biomedical background, plant science was not a strength of mine, and that’s why I am truly grateful for the opportunity.

The intensive summer school is effectively a “zero to hero” course, taking you on a journey to become competent and passionate about teaching plant science, and using plant contexts for teaching many of the other parts of the course.

At the core of the summer school is the lecture series where leaders from across the world deliver talks about their science aimed at undergraduates, who may be biomedical. This makes them very accessible to us as post-16 teachers. Although each talk is unique and no two years will be the same, it’s amazing how conceptually things slot into place, like apical dominance. Why auxins move with polarity was described with clarity by Prof Dame Ottoline Leyser, like many students I taught, I was thinking about auxin-mediated effects in isolation, rather than thinking about what else is happening across plasma membranes and inside plant cells. Linking together feedback loops, gene expression, proton pumps, protein trafficking, alongside the effects of auxins completes (more of) the story.

What sets the summer school apart is that the teachers get to discuss the science with the scientists for about half an hour after each lecture. This invaluable experience is when I was able to think like one of my own students, asking them “why” and “what if”, unleashing my own inner 16-year-old self. From these discussions, it’s amazing how you start to see the interconnectedness of plant science with the entire course.

Alongside the lectures, there are opportunities to undertake university-level practicals, such as using a confocal laser microscope to study guard cells in Arabidopsis, or using computational techniques to model the modular growth of plants.

Person standing next to a confocal laser microscope

Dr Joe McKenna with the confocal laser microscope during the Cell Biology practical. Credit: Jon Hale.

Image taken using a confocal laser microscope. Credit: J Hale.

Image taken from the Development practical. Credit: J Hale.

The SAPS team understands that we cannot take the confocal laser microscope back into the classroom, so stimulate us to reflect upon these experiences, and by working together produce activities for our own contexts. The fact that we were a group of teachers, living and working together for these few days meant that we developed a strong bond and sense of true cooperation as you probably have with your own department teams, however the value of the wider network cannot be underestimated. Having the shared experience of the Summer School has made our little network positive as we know each others’ contexts yet have the shared vision of trying to teach all parts of our post-16 biology courses to the best it can be.

The SAPS Plant Science Summer School has had a phenomenal impact on my confidence to teach with plant-based examples such as the epistatic relationship between TMM (Too Many Mouths) and stomagen in stomata density regulation and demonstrate practical skills to ensure that they work as they should. My students are now seeing the living world around them, rather than just humans, taking more enjoyment from learning about the diversity of our planet as an interconnected web, rather than just a series of bolt-on concepts.

Alongside the networking with fellow teachers, I have built up long lasting relationships with scientists, such as Dr Andrea Paterlini who gave a talk about plasmodesmata; and Dr Mark Chapman who spoke about underutilised crop species. Andrea has subsequently joined the Daffodil DNA Project as a STEM Partner, with Mark and I leading a project to grow lots of beans across the UK in schools. All of the scientists are passionate about their work and even more passionate about inspiring the next generation of plant scientists. They understand the role we, as teachers, play in this and seem to want to do everything they can to support us.

For more information about the Summer School visit https://www.saps.org.uk/growth-hub/saps-plant-science-summer-school/

Bursaries are available for those attending from state-funded schools.

If you have any queries about the Summer School or would like to receive an application form, please email saps@botanic.cam.ac.uk

Applications close Sunday 5th May 2024.

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