Laura Heintz, teacher at Weston School in Wisconsin, US, recently posted this great video of her students taking part in I’m a Scientist. Her class were in the Technetium Zone in March this year. Take a look…

In the video, the students gather around laptops to discuss the scientists and their research, planning questions in advance. There’s a real buzz after the live chat, with the students excited that they’ve just talked to “real scientists”. One student comments: “It was really fun – they said that we were really good students too.” The class seemed to most enjoy the interaction with the scientists and chance to find out more about their work, with another student saying: “We were talking to Jon a lot, we were kind of bombarding him with questions… We watched some of his videos, the one where he threw a rock down on some lava was really cool.”

Laura explained to us what she thought were the main benefits of taking part: “Our school’s in the middle of a cornfield, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We have students who’ve not left the state or gone further than Madison, which is a little over an hour away. It allows students to look beyond school and understand the world is a larger place. I thought it was amazing overall.”

She added: “Every day they do things over and over again, this was completely outside of their comfort zone – they see the world as it is and connect with it.”