Primary School Xmas Lecture(s) Review

I offer the below comments on the AECC Christmas Lecture today given to a large room full of P7 kids from several local schools.

Length

The session was too long, to expect (the first lecture hall entrants) to sit from 9.45 to gone 12 without a break is a big ask. I concede that the Q&A after each talk broke things up but our particular school, on the left of the hall, only got to ask one question at the very end.

Content

The first well illustrated talk on fish from MacDuff Aquarium was a good opener, but maybe a bit too long (seen one marine organism, seen them all almost). The second found boring by several of the students with its hackneyed PC message. The speaker also did not seem to be aware of the Aberdeen Bay floating platform installations. It was a big ask for mainly City kids to recognise High Wind in Peterhead when they were consistently giving a correct answer for the one they knew (“Beach, Blackdog, Balmedie”). I missed the third being out with a child. The final one with real kids, but no physical ROVs to give a better idea of scale, was probably the best. But reminiscent of my younger grandson at the conclusion the lad in front of me got up and said “Finally”.

Introductions

I thought these were overly detailed. While I appreciate that there were back stories to be told to make people more human detail on how many animals owned was too much information

Audience Interaction

Despite the lecture series having occured before I was not sure that all the speakers knew how to deal with Primary school kids. Yes one or two had Q&A at the start and in the middle of talks but as the questions with microphones at the end showed this was problematic for some as most could not hear if a child called out. Second, as mentioned above, the engagement of the talks could have been improved if there had been more demos: one had a jar of bioluminescent stuff but I think that was the only physical one.

OK a bit harsh and unlikely to be sent in as feedback, to spare blushes, but I have got it off my chest. And the kids did write me a Christmas thank you card afterwards including a spare Advent Calendar (with chocs) from Apache Oil & Gas.