The Plutonium Zone was a themed Zone supported by Wellcome, specifically for Primary School students. Simonne is a biomedical scientist who tests patients’ blood to help doctors work out which medicine to give them and Senga, the winner of this Zone, is a PhD student researching ways to make plants grow better using DNA from bacteria. Pete works for a drugs company using bacteria to improve their products, James is an archaeologist studying how human brains have evolved and Jake is an applied mathematician looking into why fluid or gasses can change from being smooth to chaotic.
This Zone had a high number of questions from students in Ask about a variety of science topics, as well as the scientists’ work. All the scientists were great at explaining things in simple terms and building up a relationship with the students. Senga often talked about her ‘fake poo’ experiment as which the students found hilarious and were very interested in, and Senga often shared the experiment with teachers after the chat so students could carry it out. Senga also visited one of the schools – Doonfoot Primary – the week after the event to do the experiment with the students.
