Sam was the runner up in the Astronomy Zone of June 2014. The zone winner, Roberto, decided to support Sam’s project with the £500, as he had secured funding for his own project from the Science and Technology Facilities Council through his STFC Public Engagement Fellowship.

We asked Sam to tell us how he had made use of the prize money over the last year, and here is what he said……

I took part in the Astronomy Zone in June 2014 and it was an incredibly busy zone. With 425 students involved who asked over six hundred questions, and almost eight thousand lines of live chat over 18 different chats, we were all kept extremely busy talking about space for the whole fortnight.

A huge number of brilliant questions were asked, about whether aliens existed and where they might be, how black holes and worm holes work, what dark matter is, and many other things. We were very lucky to have such an interested group of students to talk to.

The prize money gave me the chance to share my passion for astronomy with the next generation. thanks to I’m a Scientist and Roberto!

The outreach project I decided to spend the prize money on was to go into schools with the University of Southampton Astronomy Physics and Astronomy department’s ‘Astrodome‘, which is an inflatable, portable planetarium! The planetarium is used to project the stars all around our audience, so that we can explain the things people can see with their own eyes in the night sky. We can then zoom in on different objects in space like planets, galaxies and nebulae, as if we were using a telescope, so that we can explain the science behind the objects that we study as astronomers, and talk about the many questions we still need to answer.

The students inside the Astrodome, getting ready for an out-of-this-world trip!

I went to ten different schools with the planetarium using the prize money, with the aim of getting school students interested and excited about astronomy and science in general. The money was used to pay for rental and fuel for the van used to transport the Astrodome to the schools.

One of the schools I chose to go to was the secondary school I went to myself before becoming a scientist, Bulmershe School in Reading. The experience I had learning science at school and the great physics teachers I had were extremely important in my decision to study physics at university and eventually become an astronomer. For this reason, I wanted to try to pass some of the enthusiasm for science I have gained back to the school and its current pupils, and attempt to inspire a new generation of scientists there, as well as in the other schools I visited.

Teacher and students with me and my faithful Astrodome, the big, beautiful, portable planetarium itself.

University of Southampton Astrodome Planetarium shows are free for local schools! Head to their website, astrodome.soton.ac.uk, for more information on show content and to book them for your school.

You can read about Roberto Trotta’s Hands-on Universe project here: robertotrotta.com/the-hands-on-universe/