Thomas was voted the winner of the Evolution Zone in March 2015. Here he writes about using his £500 prize money to create a mobile taphonomy experiment to take to schools (Taphonomy is the study of how organisms become fossilized).

If you’d like the chance to win funding for your own public engagement work, apply for the next I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here: imascientist.org.uk/scientist-apply

I used the prize money to create a mobile taphonomy experiment to take to schools. Unfortunately this proved difficult to transport  and was too time-consuming to provide on-demand to schools, so I instead created some videos and used the remaining money to buy a tablet to show school students. I went to seven schools and reached around 300 students.

I then took the videos we made to three fossil festivals which had 1000+ footfalls each. I hope to make a YouTube series on it now I’ve finished my PhD! Since winning the prize money, I’ve been involved in lots more outreach activities, namely I’ve been active in multiple fossil festivals and STEM visits to schools.