Teach Me A Lesson with Greg James and Bella Mackie

Latest Episodes:

Where's The Most Painful Place To Get A Tattoo? Jun 13, 2022

Show notes

Greg and Bella are joined by award-winning Biology teacher Miss Wilsher for a lesson all about tattoos!

By looking at how a tattoo works, we'll find out about the different layers of your skin and how pain works; we'll also hear about the chequered history of tattooing and it's ancient origins. Lacrosse-fan Miss Wilsher will share the science behind why a tattoo stays put, how to stop them fading and - at the other end of a tattoo's life - how laser removal works. Otzi the Iceman makes a reappearance, and Greg and Bella will share their own tattoo stories - from embarrassing first tattoos to Greg's blink-and-you'll-miss it wrist tattoo.

Can Maths Explain What We Find Beautiful? Jun 05, 2022

Show notes

Greg and Bella are back with a brand new term of teachers giving their favourite lessons! Today it's Maths with former semi-professional footballer Mr Grindrod.

In a lesson all about sequences, patterns and ratios, we'll find out how much maths goes into the things we find beautiful. From beautiful flowers, to beautiful buildings, artworks and even faces! We'll learn about the Golden Ratio, a magic number called phi and the Fibonacci Sequence. And we'll also find out just how obsessed with maths DaVinci was!

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your pictures - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

How Can Cheese Slices Help Us Find The Speed Of Light? Jan 24, 2022

Show notes

Professional breakdancer and Physics teacher Mr Ceeraz invites Greg and Bella to an end-of-term cheese-but-no-wine party, as they attempt to find the speed of light using cheese slices and a microwave.

Physics fanatic Mr Ceeraz promises that his lessons are never dull as he injects plenty of puns, amazing visual aids and lots of dancing to help his students get to grips with complex subjects - like the speed of light and the electromagnetic spectrum. In today's episode, Mr Ceeraz will play a game with Greg and Bella all about speed which will help them understand just how fast the speed of light is. He'll crack out the cheese strings to explore the structure of waves, share his actions to the legendary Electromagnetic Spectrum song from YouTube and discuss the different waves that make up the spectrum.

Plus, he'll introduce Greg to a website which shows you how far a radio broadcast has travelled into space (Greg's first show is REALLY far away!) and share an amazing do-it-yourself experiment using cheese slices and your kitchen's microwave to help anyone find the speed of light.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your pictures - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

How Can We Mend A Broken Heart? Jan 17, 2022

Show notes

Greg and Bella return for 2022 with a special lesson from primary school teacher Miss Osueke all about the heart.

Award-winning Miss Osueke will take us on a guided tour of the cardiovascular system, and challenge Greg and Bella to come up with new ways of remembering parts of the heart.

Join Greg and Bella in the task to find your resting heart rate and the 'in-lesson' exercise to increase it. Learn about the surprisingly valuable contents of our blood, including a precious metal which can be found in your mobile phone!

We'll also find out about the ways in which emotional heartbreak can have real medical implications, as Greg and Bella share their stories of young heartbreak.

Hear about the work of early heart surgery pioneer, Daniel Hale Williams, plus Miss Osueke's shock lupus diagnosis and the open heart surgery that saved her life.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

Are You More Squeamish Than A Shakespearean? Dec 20, 2021

Show notes

English teacher Mrs Steele gives Greg and Bella a lesson about just how gross life was in Shakespeare's day.

Greg and Bella will work out if they could survive a day in Elizabethan London; hear about the crazy ideas that informed early medicine and their unlikely cures; find out how women's health was treated differently and see how all these ideas played out in the theatre of the day.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

Can We See Music? Dec 13, 2021

Show notes

Greg James and Bella Mackie head back to the art room for a lesson from Miss Green about how art and music collide.

They'll hear about how the great painters like Picasso and Van Gogh were inspired by music, share their own memories of how music has shaped their lives, find out about synaesthesia and how it shapes the work of artists like Kandinsky and musicians like Billie Eilish.

They'll discover the ways in which art and music have intertwined over the past 100 years, resulting in movements like Psychedelia, Pop Art and Punk.

Plus, hear about how the K-Pop group BTS are supporting contemporary art and find out which musicians have the most impressive art collections in the world.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

How To Be The Real You Dec 06, 2021

Show notes

With the help of drama teacher Mr Yale, Greg and Bella find out how to escape stereotyping to become their true selves.

They'll look at the birth of stereotypes in drama and find out why soaps and reality TV still love using them today. They'll talk about their own experiences of conforming to and escaping stereotypes, and hear about the ways other people have defeated typecasting.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

CSI Geography: Can we solve a 2,000 year old crime with GCSE Geography? Nov 29, 2021

Show notes

In a Geography lesson like no other, DI Greg James and DCI Bella Mackie investigate how human bodies can be preserved for thousands of years, with the help of Superintendent McCulloch.

Together, they will look at some of the famous cases of naturally preserved human bodies from history - including the Tollund Man, King Tut and the plaster casts of Pompeii - to find out how they died and why their bodies were so well-preserved for so many years. They'll look at how decomposition works and the factors that can speed it up or slow it down; and along the way they'll discuss the carbon cycle, how fossil fuels are formed, and find out what it's like to be caught in a volcano's pyroclastic flow...

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

Are We Manipulating Images Or Are Images Manipulating Us? Nov 22, 2021

Show notes

Greg and Bella are back with a another slightly terrifying Computing lesson from Mrs Cunningham-Smith, this time looking at how much we can trust our own eyes.

They'll share their own favourite photos of each other; open the history books for a glimpse at one of the earliest examples of catfishing and find out which incredibly famous photo of a US President is actually a fake; they'll talk about the modern dangers of deepfakes, and find out how filters and retouching can lead to dysmorphia; and they'll discuss the lengths they go to for the perfect selfie.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

Could A Human Actually Get Super Powers? Nov 15, 2021

Show notes

Greg James and Bella Mackie take a lesson in genetics from Biology teacher Ms Marwick.

Greg and Bella look at the science behind DNA, find out why loving cheese is a secret super power, and discover how genetic manipulation could help humans fly, go invisible or even freeze themselves.

The discussion turns to what superpowers they would like each other to have, and would they... could they... clone Barney the Dog?

We also hear about the Dark Lady of DNA, Rosalind Franklin, and discover how she set the groundwork for Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix, which picked up a Nobel Prize in 1962.

Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.

Get in touch with your funny school stories - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

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