The inaugural workshop on ‘Advances in Life Sciences: A workshop for educators’ was successfully organized at YSR hall, School of Life Sciences (SLS), University of Hyderabad (UoH), on 28th October 2023. The organizers-Dr Pallabi Mitra, SERB research scientist, and Ms. Gayatri Ramachandran, a senior research scholar at SLS, are excited to have launched the novel outreach initiative supported by the 4th IndiaBioscience outreach grant that focuses on educating educators on diverse life science topics, communication strategies, and modern pedagogical approaches that will help them effectively engage students as compared to existent classroom teaching practices. Faculty members from the SLS and scientists from eminent scientific institutions in Hyderabad like TIFR, CDFD, CCMB and IIT wholeheartedly supported the event.

The first talk of the inaugural event was delivered by Prof. Sharmistha Banerjee, Department of Biochemistry, UoH, on the importance of antimicrobial resistance. The educators found relevant takeaways from this talk that are appropriate to the science curriculum they impart in high school. 

Mrs. Asha Latha, a high school teacher, says – ‘Takeaways would be how we develop resistance to the use of Antibiotics, better use of fermentation, the importance of probiotics’

Mrs. Rajeshwari, a middle and high school teacher, agrees – ‘The first thing which we thought to teach our children is about probiotics, which are very important in our life nowadays.’

An extremely engaging session by Dr. Somdatta Karak from CCMB ensued, wherein she captured the audience’s attention through handouts on pertinent classroom tools and discussed various means to use classrooms as a medium of science communication. She emphasized pursuing science communication as a career choice for students keen on basic science. 

Dr. Susmitha, an undergraduate faculty opines – ‘Such initiatives will help students to seriously pursue a career in basic sciences and inculcate interest by providing relevant resources along with academics’

The workshop also saw eminent scientists like Dr. Rashna Bhandari from CDFD Hyderabad, Dr. Tamal Das from TIFR Hyderabad, and Dr. Rahul Kumar from the Plant Sciences Department of the University of Hyderabad who introduced and engaged the audience on new and exciting areas in life sciences which are yet to reach the textbooks. Educational resources are going to be developed for the educators and would be made available to them as a part of the initiative. The workshop came off seamlessly, thanks to the volunteers who pitched in- Ms. SushmaSree and Mr. Himanshu, both PhD students at SLS and Ms. Aishwarya, a project JRF at DRILS, UoH.

Pallabi and Gayatri intend to carry out several such workshops, some at schools and degree/engineering colleges, to reach more educators and contribute to improving science education with their novel initiative and efforts.