Currently, I am sitting in a train to Prague and I think about the necessity to change trains 2 more times. But I believe it was worth it. I gave a voluntary talk to students of my former grammar school about basic methods used in molecular biology and their usage. I tried to explain them the basic principles of PCR, gel electrophoresis and Sanger sequencing with some clinical and research applications and interesting facts, to show them that biology can be fun and to motivate them to study some STEM related field.

I tried to present the topic in an interesting, interactive and informal way, in such way, that could be understood by a high school student, but still informative and benefitable for them.

In spite of the fact, that instead of promised two hours, I was given one, I managed to explain the topics, except for the last two slides.

What I found the most rewarding was that students responded to my questions after a bit of persuasion :) and they seemed to be interested in the topic and knew the basic facts I counted on (revised them in form of discussion) such as the structure of DNA and mechanism of replication. After the talk, we moved to a different class, where we discussed their academic interests, future plans for choice of university, our research on autism and universities in Czech and Slovak republic.

This was a very pleasurable experience for me and according to feedback also for the students. I definitely see a great potential in such activities, that promote and educate high school students about the real research/clinical problems and show them, what they could do with their knowledge themselves later. I am definitely planning to repeat this some day.

You can find my slides here.