The Sustainability Zone was a themed zone for primary schools, supported by Wellcome. There were six scientists participating:
- Matt Bower works at the Scottish Government to maintain safe drinking water
- Maia Elliott writes at Global Food Security about how our food system could be made healthier and more sustainable
- Lyndsay Christie is a PhD student researching the diseases that infect fish and how we can control these to improve the health of fish
- Liam Taylor, the zone winner, studies how climate change affects the icy regions of our world
- Dionne Turnbull studies plant diseases and how plants can defend themselves from these infections
- Brendan Marrinan is a geo-environmental consultant where he assesses the contamination of land before someone can start building on it
Students in this zone showed great awareness of the current issues surrounding sustainability and the environment, and there were lots of discussions in ASK and CHAT about climate change, pollution and health. There were also a large number of questions about the scientists’ lives outside of work, their hobbies and families.
Fetlar Primary School on the Shetland Islands took part in this zone with a class of four students, who were all very engaged throughout the activity. Two of these joined both the evening chat and the 3hr open live chat from home.
