Tom won the Oxygen Zone back in June 2010. Here’s what he spent his prize money on…

On Saturday 4th June 2011 I used some of the money I won through taking part in I’m a Scientist to run a forensic science event at the Royal Institution (RI) of Great Britain.

The event formed part of a larger Family Fun Day organised by the Royal Institution’s L’Oreal Young Scientist Centre. The Young Scientist Centre runs these events a few times a year each with a different theme. The theme for the June event was forensic science and as such I was aksed to help out.

I decided to donate some of prize money as a prize for the winning poster at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Analytical Science Network (ASN) annual conference, ‘Emerging Analytical Professionals’ in May 2011 but I decided to spend the bulk of the money on buying supplies to run a session at the RI Family Fun Day. The idea was that I could promote my work and forensic science to the attendees.

Along with two colleagues I decided to run a fingerprinting session. The day was extremely popular with over 1000 members of the public visiting the RI throughout the day. Demand for the fingerprinting session was high so we ended up having to put up sign up sheets and run sessions every 45 minutes. Every session was over subscribed and we managed to run the session for approximately 200 children in the end.

The format was as follows:

• The participants were given an introductory talk on fingerprints – how and why they are formed, why they are unique, why they are important in crime fighting and how to characterise them into the different types (loops, arches and whorls).
• The children were then given the opportunity to take their own fingerprints using special ‘invisible ink’ and encouraged to classify their own prints, deciding which of the three main groups each of their 10 fingers and thumbs belonged to.
• The next part of the session was a ‘Who done it?’ activity. The children were introduced to a variety of fingerprint development techniques that are used by scenes of crime examiners and the police. Using fingerprint powder and a special brush each participant was given the opportunity to search for and develop a fingerprint that had been left on a window (pane of glass) by a ‘burglar’.
• Those that found the invisible print and developed it were able to lift the print off the glass using a special sticky lift and study the print carefully. They were then able to compare the crime scene print with a set of suspect’s prints from criminal records in the hope of identifying the burglar.
• Finally before the participants left, they were given the opportunity to take a foot or footwear impression. All children were free to take all of the material, prints, lifts and footwear impressions with them.

The feedback we received was excellent. Some parents explained that they had attended Family Fun Days for years at that this was the best session they had ever come across – not bad for a bunch of first timers.

For us taking part, it was a very rewarding experience and we were very glad we gave up our Saturday to help out. Also, the Royal Institution is a scientific organisation that has been around for 209 years and has had some very famous scientists working there including Michael Faraday so it was brilliant to be involved. Promoting science and engineering to children is important and it was genuinely reassuring to see so many children, ranging from 4 years old to 15 year old, interested in forensic science.

We used the money to buy all the supplies needed to run many sessions of this type and we have them all stored in a big case ready for the next event. We are keen to use our special leave for volunteering to run more of these sessions in the future.