EPI•STEM PODCAST EPISODE 11

In the EPI•STEM PODCAST Episode 11, co-hosts Geraldine Simmie PhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome their special guest Norma O’Brien, the Director of the Limerick Education Support Centre (LESC). Norma explains the ongoingeducative and partnership work of the centre, for example, through ongoing liaison with school principals in primary and post-primary schools in Limerick city and county and Tipperary, providing CPD for school leaders and teachers and workingwith community groups, museums, national and regional policymakers and local enterprises.Norma shares her vast expertise of working as a former scienceteacher and school leader in different schools in Ireland and London and how this has prepared her to live out her values and commitment in her current role as Director of the LESC. We speak about our three way partnership in the Eco-Village project for 2050, between LESC, the HUNT Museum and EPI•STEM. We are already in awe of the project work taking place in the six schools under the guidance of the teachers. We are viewing the projects using the lens of social justice and our understanding of that in terms of the greater good of Irishsociety and ecology. Norma has started a PhD in Educational Leadership in the University of Limerick with the guidance of her supervisors, Professor Patricia Mannix McNamara and Dr. Nicolaas Blom. We wish her every success in her future endeavours.The musical selection today is provided by Ayyaz Mehmood, afinal year student in the Performing Arts in World Music in The Irish World Academy of Music. Ayyaz is a singer and a songwriter. Here Ayyaz is playing acoustic guitar and singing one of his own compositions, entitled ‘Homelife’.