Fiona won the Sports Zone back in March 2012. Here’s what she’s been up to with her prize money…
I’m so glad I took part in I’m a Scientist in March 2012; it was a lot of fun and really rewarding. Thank you to everyone who voted for me, and also to the other scientists who took part and helped with answering so many awesome questions!
Fiona finding out what the students know about the heart
When I was 15 years old I remember my biology teacher brought in a pig’s eye. It was disgusting but awesome, and I remember that lesson even 9 years later!
My £500 was spent on getting sheep’s heart for a biology lesson at school in Hull and dissection kits for them to cut open the heart and study it. I also spent some on the hiring of a camera and help to film the lesson.
"You can see me putting my finger through the aorta and it comes out through the ventricle - many found that really disgusting!"
The lesson started off with me explaining about the heart, trying to find out what young pupils aged 13 knew. I then cut up the heart and showed them the different regions, of which there is a video hopefully available on the web soon.
The best part of the lesson was that each group of young pupils were given a heart to dissect and the teachers and myself went round to talk about each region.
In the future I will create a website with a load of information and a dissection film free for everyone to use. And hopefully teachers will become more interested in making biology more practical in schools.
I hope to use the film and pictures to help teachers in other schools to buy a heart from the butchers (it’s cheap – around £6) and make a biology lesson more practical.
Students dissecting a sheep's heart!
Textbooks are easy to use, they have all the pictures and the information, but to be honest I think they can be quite boring. To make a lesson more interesting and more fun, why not bring something practical to the biology lesson? Suggest this to your teacher and direct them to this page, they’re welcome to contact me for help or further information!
