This week I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation to some high school students at the UWA ‘Science Experience’ event. I'd never presented to this age group before and looked forward to the opportunity to think about how I might engage this younger audience.
I gave a presentation on the social sciences and tried to link it with the "harder" sciences they were covering in other parts of the forum. I gave an example of a health/science problem and asked the students to think about how they would solve the problem, linking each potential action to a sub-discipline of the social sciences - behavioural economics, public health delivery, or health Geography. I then gave a couple of other examples of how social science can interact with seemingly different areas of study.
What I really learnt, however, was that when it comes to standing in front of a bunch of teenagers you've just got to keep it simple and fun! A dinosaur joke here, a game of thrones reference there, and an interactive live poll was all it took to keep the students engaged!