Lifestyle4Health network and The Cell: An evening of inspiration for teachers
On September 9, around 20 teachers and school staff joined us at The Cell in Stockholm for an evening focused on life science, education and how research can become more accessible and useful in the classroom.
The event was organized as part of an ongoing collaboration between KI’s Lifestyle4Health network, coordinated by Jhon Álvarez Ahlgren, a fourth year PhD candidate at the Dept. of Global Public Health, and Samira Bouabana, Director of The Cell. The collaboration is part of the network's efforts to contribute to KI’s third mission, our responsibility as a university to share knowledge and engage with society beyond research and higher education.
The evening began with two KI students, from the Speech and Language Pathology and Medical programs, who shared their experiences of studying at KI. They spoke about the opportunities that come from studying at a university such as KI, where many programs are connected to health and medicine. Having common interests with students from different programs makes it easier to exchange experiences and perspectives in different disciplines. They also talked about student housing and the opportunities for learning and clinical experience provided by KI’s collaborations with hospitals in Stockholm.
The evening then changed the focus to health promotion and prevention in children. Liselotte Schäfer Elinder, Professor at the Department of Global Public Health and research group leader for Community Nutrition and Physical Activity, and Jhon Álvarez Ahlgren presented the Healthy School Start program. The program supports families and schools in promoting healthy eating and physical activity in children through family. They presented its main components and research findings showing improvements in diet and physical activity, as well as moderate effects on BMI reduction among children with obesity. Read more about the Healthy School Start program here.
Teachers also had the opportunity to experience some of The Cell’s educational activities themselves. The Cell works with STEAM, an approach that brings together science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, and connects these areas to the school syllabus and students’ learning goals. Participants tried activities that are also related to ongoing KI research, including exploring how the brain creates our sense of being in our own body and how electrical signals from muscles can be used to create digital works.
The evening also included a visit to Me You We - Exploring Human Behaviour, where art is brought into dialogue with research and questions about society. Through artworks and objects from medical history, The Cell’s school activities open up conversations about topics such as mental health, body ideals, technology, identity, ethics and developments in medical research.
The event offered a good opportunity for teachers, KI students, researchers and educators at The Cell to meet, share experiences and mingle. For KI, activities like this are an important part of bringing research and education into closer contact with schools and wider society. This is also a good way to give teachers concrete examples of how current research can be introduced and discussed both with students and parents.
About the KI Lifestyle4Health network
Contributing to KI's third mission and Agenda 2030, the Research Network KI Lifestyle4Health was established in 2019. It is a forum and platform that gathers interested researchers and professionals working with lifestyle factors that can prevent and manage non-communicable diseases.
Funded by Axel och Margaret Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse för allmännyttiga ändamål.