Form the Future<\/a>. She explains that a child\u2019s ideas about what they may be able to achieve in life are largely determined by their social network and available role models. Teachers and professionals have a small window to expose kids to career possibilities before they must commit to one. \u201cYou have to make decisions about what you\u2019re going to study at a really young age, sometimes as young as 12,\u201d Austin says. \u201cYou might feel like you\u2019re choosing your destiny before you could possibly know what you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\nAustin asserts that the education and employment worlds exist in separate silos. <\/strong>\u201cAll of this effort is put into young people to get them through the education system and to pass their exams,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build their curiosity for the working world alongside that. Let them see the whole landscape, but also develop the skill sets that they\u2019ll need to move into a job seamlessly.\u201d For example, she points to skills such as communicating appropriately with people of different ages and levels within an organization.<\/p>\nNow in its tenth year, Form the Future bridges the gap between schools and employers. The organization has partnered with Illumina to reach children from a young age through high school, using Illumina\u2019s STEM inspiration packs and in-class DNA experiments. They also bring students to Illumina\u2019s European headquarters in Cambridge and train teachers in career education. Form the Future works across the eastern region of the UK and has just launched a digital program that will help reach more children in schools or places with limited access to transportation, the biotech industry, and its workers.<\/p>\n
A scientist designs her next project
\n<\/strong>Alison Coffey is a clinical genomics scientist at Illumina, who lives just south of Cambridge. For over 20 years Coffey has tutored children of all ages in science and other subjects. During the pandemic, she began teaching science online to her nieces and nephews, godchildren, their friends, and their classmates. Working with neurodivergent students and others with learning differences, Coffey gained an understanding of various educational needs\u2014and she wanted to do more. Already a seasoned volunteer and fundraiser (and prolific bake-sale cake maker), Coffey reached out to Illumina\u2019s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department last year to look for opportunities to volunteer remotely. \u201cI really believe you should actively give back to the community you live in,\u201d she says. \u201cI love the fact that Illumina allows you to use your work knowledge and experience and give back within your work life.\u201d<\/p>\nHollie Church, regional head of CSR & Sustainability Europe, connected her with Form the Future to help deliver a new program that brings genomics and careers in genomics to the classroom using digital platforms. Coffey, together with colleagues Holly Snyder and Antonia Alalitei, developed the content.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were challenged to join Illumina\u2019s goal of reaching 5 million STEM learners globally by 2030,\u201d Austin says. By delivering instruction remotely, the program could potentially reach thousands of students, especially those who live far from biotech centers or who can\u2019t afford to take field trips to places like Illumina\u2019s Cambridge campus. The team developed content that Illumina staff could present remotely and then interact with students in real time, as part of a normal science lesson. \u201cThe single most important part of careers learning is actually hearing from another person who\u2019s trodden that path before you,\u201d Austin says.<\/p>\n
The pilot program
\n<\/strong>In March, Coffey, Snyder, Alalitei, and Drew Ellershaw presented to two classrooms each of about thirty 12- and 13-year-olds at a school in Soham, a rural village of about 12,000 people. The lesson covered the basics of DNA, sequencing, genetics and disease, and an introduction to Illumina. The students loved the portion in which Snyder, a genetic counselor from the US, talked about canine genetics. \u201cThe children were so excited that an American was dialing in from the East Coast,\u201d Coffey says, \u201cand she did not disappoint.\u201d Snyder had had genetic testing done on her two dachshunds, and she shared the reports outlining their ancestry, disease risk, breeding possibilities, and traits (one of them, Arlo, has a high degree of \u201cwolfiness,\u201d which the children loved learning about). A classroom activity followed in which the students mixed and matched different traits to \u201cbuild\u201d their own dog.<\/p>\nThe scientists also talked about their own career paths. The students particularly liked hearing from Ellershaw, a clinical genomic scientist, who admitted that at one point during his education he lost interest and eventually had to turn things around through hard work. Coffey says the kids appreciated his honesty: \u201cThe path isn\u2019t always smooth. I was going to be an interpreter or a musician, and it was my chemistry teacher who inspired me to be a scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n
In future sessions, the partnership plans to rotate representatives in from a wide range of jobs, such as a software engineer, a product manager, a bioinformatics scientist, or an expert in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
“There’s the phrase, \u2018you cannot be what you cannot see,\u2019\u201d Coffey says. \u201cI want kids to really see the variety of jobs that exist, even just within Illumina, and the variety of people that do them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project officially launched this month with another 300 students, and will resume in October with the new school year. The team hopes to return to the same groups of students every year with slightly more advanced lessons: Ultimately, Form the Future and Illumina would like to deliver lessons to students for a period of five consecutive years. \u201cIt isn\u2019t just a one-off and that\u2019s that,\u201d Austin says. \u201cThey will engage every year and be continually reminded that they\u2019re learning this science because it can lead to these pathways. The door is open.\u201d\u00a0\u25c6<\/p>\n
To learn more about Illumina\u2019s STEM resources and educational outreach, follow this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom\u2019s education system requires all students to take a universal exam, the General Certificate of Secondary…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[815,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-81130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114892341513735508","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}