The kids at Birmingham Primary school got a visit from the famous Dr Karl last week with an inspiring zoom chat which covered everything from artificial intelligence to aliens.
A group of the primary school kids in year six got a full hour to meet up with Dr Karl in an online zoom call and and talk all things science on Wednesday 28 May.
Student Eloise said she liked how he was so educational.
“We got the answers we wanted and needed,” she said.
Ariah said they loved ALL the fun facts.
“Like telling us the different scientists that can help us with different things,” she said.
Dr Karl is a renowned science educator, well known as an author and a science commentator on Australian radio, television, and podcasts.
Birmingham Primary school has a group of kids that are passionate about zoology, technology and all the different sciences called ‘STEAMD’ (science, technology, engineering, arts, math and design) who got to meet Dr Karl, thanks to a session arranged by their specialist teacher Ms Darvell.
“STEAMD do lots of different things– they have a podcast that they develop that goes out every couple of week amd they have a whole bunch of animals in here that they are keepers for,” said Ms Darvell.
“They’re brilliant,” she said.
Long time fan of Dr Karl, Ms Darvell said the day was fantastic for learning and engagement and that the grade six group asked Dr Karl lots of questions about different areas in science and technology.
“They had a bunch of questions about life and animals and life on Earth,” she said.
“Dr Karl has recently been in Italy developing science to AI and they all sorts of had questions about that.”
From asking about self learning AI, to aliens to wondering if water is really wet, the students explored science and technology with their virtual visitor over the hour.
“One of the kids asked, Is water wet? And the answer to that was ‘only sometimes’, and it depends on what surface it’s on – and that just blew our mind,” said Ms Darvell.
Dr Karl also met some of the kids classroom animals, noticing they had a blue tongue lizard as well.
The group spent part of the time exploring why, in fact the lizard’s tongue was blue, exploring chemistry science behind the colour.
Ms Darvell said Dr Karl said there’s a saying in science that ‘great scientists don’t know the answers, they ask the questions’,” she said.
“I thought that that was wonderful, because here are 20-odd kids sitting around just wanting to learn about the world.” she said.
The STEAMD group will use the recording with Dr Karl now as part of a science podcast they make regurgaly at the school called The Stem Squad podcast.
“We are going to put some of the interview into the next podcast,” said Ms Darvell.
“The next podcast we’re looking at women in science – after that, we’ll be putting bits of our Dr Karl in the next one.”
Emily said he was amazing.
“He knows everything, and he’s the best,” she said.
Josslyn loved how he knew so many things.
“ It was very interesting knowing that he was telling the truth.” she said.
Ms Darvell said after the time finished, the kids stayed in and they debated whether aliens really exist.
“They just were so elated and amazed, I’m very proud of them,” she said.
Science is for everybody and Ms Darvell said one of the main highlights for her as an educator that you don’t need to know everything.
“You don’t need to be the smartest or the best – you just need to be interested,” she said.
“You just want to discover.”
“Dr Karl said, the kids this age, this is the best time – This is when you ask the most questions.”
