This started off begged, borrowed and stolen from a colleague. PT Science originally told me that the Faculty wanted to reintroduce an old investigation on famous scientists, which later turned into Scottish scientists, which further transmogrified into “Scotland’s scientific contribution to the world” to allow scientists whose work took place in scotland too. Not that we’re grabby or anything 
Anyway, said colleague was also pursuing a similar path last term and used it for her final uni assignment. Very straightforward, using the “I see, I think, I wonder” routine from Project Zero at Harvard, along with a photo and a name. I’ve used exactly the same idea (because it totally makes sense as an introduction), but at least I never saw any of her original worksheets, so I can claim a smidgeon of originality – a minute smidgeon.
However, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the classes so far. I’ve a picture of Fleming that I use as a practice example for the whole class, and wow, have they come through.
- There have been philosophical discussions about why the photographs / portraits have been taken in the first place, leading us rapidly from “That’s a old guy in a bow tie” to “He must be famous – what for?”
- A couple have identified that Fleming is holding a petrie dish, while others have hypothesised what might be in it (fossils? samples? bacteria?).
- The clothing has been examined to identify a rough time period. Others noted his spectacles and used them as evidence.
- Pupils have tried to guess a location using the somewhat non-descript background.
It’s altogether fabulous and exciting. A small fly in the ointment is that when the class start on their own scientists / inventors / engineers / etc, pupils working on the better known people, particularly Alexander Graham Bell, find working through See, Think, Wonder incredibly difficult, because THEY KNOW. To their minds, there isn’t anything to wonder about, even when you point out how little they actually know. Shame really, because Bell did so much more than “inventing” the telephone.
Doubly unfortunate, because the better known people also have much more written about them.
I would also love to have more women involved, but I’m still working on that. So far, I’ve only got Sophia Jex-Blake.
Anyway, it’s fun watching the pupils extrapolate from the photos. The second period, gathering information, has so far throw up all the usual problems: insufficient resources, too much copying, and over avoidance of writing anything down. Changing these bad habits will take longer than the six years of their secondary education.
The following period, creation of posters etc, should prove interesting again, as this is when the class generally realises they should have done more work in the previous period.
And the best period, when they report to their classmates, I will miss out on again, as the LRC timetable is sooooooo busy. 
So I am really happy to get to introduce the whole thing, and timetabling nightmares or not, I want to hang on to it.
