- Announcer: PBS Wisconsin Education
presents Meet the Lab:
a collection of middle school science resources
made in partnership with research labs around Wisconsin.
- Meet the Lab connects students
by starting not with the what and the how.
We actually start with people.
And by meeting people that are affected by the problems
that scientific research is trying to address,
you can really connect with those people,
and students can empathize and relate to situations
they may have in their own lives.
- Meet the Lab provides for kids to connect with scientists,
to learn more about the end result of their research,
but to really learn about the nuances of the human
that is doing the science.
So I think that's a beautiful way in for kids
to think about themselves being connected.
- What I like the most is the scientist flip cards
because it's not just what we do or the research that we do.
It's the people behind that.
And I think that that makes the audience
really connect to the work
because they can see these are real people
that have all their interests outside of science.
- We watched the video.
We read through the story and talked about it
and had, like, kind of a group discussion
about what's happening in the world.
So that, to me, was the huge strength.
It was just a great way to start conversations
and give them content that they could think about
that, again, made a difference to them in their lives.
- Meet the Lab covers a huge range of science practices,
and when you think about science,
it's probably pretty typical.
You're thinking about someone in a lab coat
who's studying new advancements in treatment for cancer,
development of stem cells to make our bodies healthier,
but what you might not think about
are the fact that there are soil biologists
that are hunting for new antibiotics
using that expertise that they have
about the microbes that are in the ground beneath us.
Or people that are studying color
and how it helps us understand and process the world around us.
- The biggest highlight of using Meet the Lab with my students
was how engaged they were in the material.
That they stuck with it; they didn't go, like,
"Oh, I'm bored with this."
No, they wanted to get to the end.
They wanted to see what happened at the end.
So they were really, really engaged in the activities.
And here's how I know.
Because when we had down time, I'd have students say,
"Can we go back to Meet the Lab?"
- I'm getting a little bit of goosebumps
just thinking back through some of our ways
that we were able to learn from Meet the Lab
to spark interest, and then follow through
on that student's interest to make connections around
learning about Parkinson's disease, for example.
And different individuals that are investigating cancer.
Those projects provided a spark for students
to bring a conversation to that learning environment
that wouldn't have been there without Meet the Lab.
And so we were able to follow up, dive in deep,
develop some customized and individualized pathways
for learning; and making connections,
building upon that STEM identity opportunity
presented in the lab, Meet the Lab,
and further that through our STEM ecosystem connections.
- The message is, anyone can be a scientist
if you like science.
The only requirement is passion for science.
And I really hope that teachers and educators,
like, really do this like an active message for kids.
And also activities like Meet the Lab
so that students get exposed to different types of science.
- So to sum it all up, it's really around entry points,
getting to connect to a scientist,
their motivation for a student that helps to kind of feel like,
"Gosh, this is cool.
"These people are neat.
"I like what they're doing, and have interesting qualities
"that are like me.
I'm motivated to learn more."
And then, that relevance develops.
[gentle music]