News

Careers Zone

The Careers Zone is a new zone where students attending a careers fair at their school can talk online with a range of scientists and engineers, based all over the UK. A lot of the time, school careers fairs are only able to accommodate businesses and organisations in the local area. We want to give students an opportunity to ask their questions to experts working in a multitude of areas, letting them see how diverse STEM careers can be. In turn, STEM professionals can pass on honest advice and information, showing students what it’s like to be a real engineer or scientist. We selected a range of experts to take part, including a deep-sea researcher, a scientist for the NHS and a Jaguar Land Rover engineer. There were also engineers who had gotten into their professions through an apprenticeship. It was important for us to let students see the different … Continue reading →

Posted on October 6, 2016 by in Evaluation, News, Project News | Comments Off

Osmium Zone – I’m a Scientist, not just for scientists?

The Institute of Physics collaborated with I’m a Scientist to create the Osmium Zone that included four people who had studied physics and now worked outside of academia and research, plus one physics researcher, to demonstrate the diversity of STEM careers to school students.

The goal was to make students aware that studying science gives transferable skills valuable in fields outside of traditional research. The Osmium Zone had high engagement and positive feedback from students, and a survey showed a slight increase in students wanting a job that uses science skills and knowledge.

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Posted on September 1, 2016 by in Evaluation, Event News, News, Science Capital | Comments Off

An update on widening participation

In September last year we wrote about Widening Participation. We’ve refined our criteria a little since then; below is our definition of a widening participation school.

We’ve decided on these criteria because they match, in broad terms, the kinds of criteria universities use to identify widening participation students.

A widening participation school is…

In England and Wales

A school in an area where POLAR3 is in the first quintile, or…
A school where the % of students eligible for free school meals is higher than 41%, or…
A school where the % of students achieving 5 grades A*–C at KS4 is below 45%, or…
A school where the % of students level 4 in reading, writing, and maths at KS2 is below 45%, or…
A school more than 25 miles from their nearest HEI.

Continue reading →

Posted on July 15, 2016 by modjosh in News, Project News, School, Science Education, Widening Participation | Comments Off

June 2016 Winner Blogs

After every event we ask the winning scientists to write a short blog to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what the June Winners had to say… Jonny, Antibiotics Zone I was super nervous in the run up to the the result because I really didn’t think I would win! Originally, I thought it was going to be difficult to juggle my time in the lab and devoting time to answering questions and participating in live chats. With some careful organisation things worked out really well and as soon as the questions started pouring in, I became addicted! I hope you all learned as much as I did! Read more Laura, Catalysis Zone The questions … Continue reading →

Posted on July 6, 2016 by modjosh in News, Scientists | Comments Off

Demand vs. Capacity — An update for June 2016

Graph of I'm a Scientist UK class requests by event in academic year — March 2013 to June 2016 Any avid readers of our project blog — there must be at least one of you — will have noticed we’ve written a lot recently about our increasing demand for classes, and our over-subscription rates.

In January, we published some numbers. Since then we have run the March 2016 event, and finalised class places in the June 2016 event. Here are some updated numbers:

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Posted on May 23, 2016 by modjosh in Capacity, Evaluation, IAS Event, News, Project News | Comments Off

On student activity and simplified registrations

TL;DR: We made the site easier for students to access and the proportion of our audience engaging increased. Like any company, we have a set of Key Performance Indicators which we use to keep an eye on how well we’re doing. One of those KPIs (professionals use abbreviations) is the percentage of active students during an event, what we will call, %AS. %AS shows the number of students who log in to the site, and go on to — at the very least — ask a question, write a line of text in a live chat, cast a vote, or leave a comment. Basically, it shows the proportion of our audience who are actively engaging with the activity. In July 2014 Rosie posted a message on our project management app of choice, pointing out that the %AS for the previous events had been falling to the level it was at during the … Continue reading →

Posted on May 23, 2016 by modjosh in Evaluation, Event News, IAS Event, News, Project News | Comments Off

Moderator Vacancies June 2016

Hello! It’s that time again! We’re looking for a couple of moderators for our June 2016 events! I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer are award-winning online events allowing students (from 9 – 18) to interact with real live scientists and engineers. We’re looking for 2 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 13th to the 24th June 2016. First rule of moderator club… This is a paid, 10 day job, if you can’t do the 10 days, please don’t apply. Your key responsibilities will be: Checking and approving questions Adding appropriate keywords and tags Logging and keeping track of questions, comments and dialogue Checking the site for errors and inappropriate content and usernames Moderating live chats Helping to run the site It’s actually a lot of fun as the students (and scientists) are quick and funny and full of energy. And hey, promoting science engagement is a good thing, am … Continue reading →

Posted on May 3, 2016 by in Event News, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off

Increasing demand and charges for independent schools

Demand for our activities has been slowly increasing. We regularly have more classes requested than we are able to accommodate and we have to limit the number of classes we offer teachers. In November 2015, for the first time we had to start turning down teachers, unable to limit classes to a point where every teacher who applied could be given a place. This increasing demand for classes has lead us to prioritise schools where we believe our activities can add the most value, where online STEM engagement can make the most difference. Most of our funders are prioritising underserved audiences. For us that means schools that traditionally don’t send many students on to Higher Education or are located disadvantageously for STEM engagement activities. Sadly this means that some schools who have been able to take up places in the past will not be able to take part without additional funding. Beginning … Continue reading →

Posted on April 11, 2016 by modjosh in Capacity, News, Project News, School, Science Education, Teachers | Comments Off

March 2016 Winners’ Blogs

After every event we ask the zone winners to write a short blog post to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what the winners from March’s zones had to say… Chris, Biochemistry Zone I’ve never experienced anything like it. I’d leave chats with a big smile from your questions and aching fingers from trying to keep up with them. Your questions made me laugh, groan, and think. I had to research quite a few of them. I’d start every morning going through and answering your questions. There’s going to be a sad hole in my mornings now that we’re done. Cat, Climate Change Zone I genuinely couldn’t have imagined how much fun taking part in IAS … Continue reading →

Posted on April 4, 2016 by in Event News, IAS Event, News | Comments Off

Reaching widening participation schools. Does it work?

Fair access has been at the heart of what we do at I’m a Scientist. One of our long term goals is to increase the number of widening participation schools taking part in our projects. To do this, the first question we asked ourselves was: What is a widening participation school? But now we have yet another question: is it worth it? Our instinct tell us it is, but is there any evidence that bringing STEM activities to those hard to reach students improves their attitudes to science or the likelihood to enrol in a STEM career? We’ve looked for this evidence and we’ve found a very nice piece of research carried out by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, by its Spanish acronym) with the help of 1,565 Y10 and Y11 students from 36 schools in Barcelona and Madrid. The students came from different socioeconomic sectors: 12% were … Continue reading →

Posted on February 24, 2016 by in News, Widening Participation | Comments Off

Moderator Vacancies: March 2016

Hi again! It’s us again! It’s that time again! We’re looking for a couple of moderators for our March 2016 events! I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer are award-winning online events allowing students (from 9 – 18) to interact with real live scientists and engineers. We’re looking for 2 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 7th to the 18th March 2016. We will also be running I’m an Engineer Ireland and I’m an Astronaut (which is very cool). First rule of moderator club.. This is a paid, 10 day job, if you can’t do the 10 days, please don’t apply. Your key responsibilities will be: checking and approving questions adding appropriate keywords and tags logging and keeping track of questions, comments and dialogue checking the site for errors and inappropriate content and usernames moderating live chats helping to run the site It’s actually a lot of … Continue reading →

Posted on February 2, 2016 by modemily in Event News, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off

November 2015 – Bigger than ever

We’ve just published the latest batch of zone reports for the recent November 2015 round of I’m a Scientist. You can find them here, or at the bottom of this post, but before you dive into the pretty pie charts and wicked wordles, we felt it would be useful to provide some context to keep in mind as you read: We had an inkling that November’s eight zones were going to be big. As we reported beforehand, due to extremely high demand from teachers, it was the first time ever that we had to turn schools away from I’m a Scientist. We also had to limit the number of classes of those taking part to one or two per zone to fit as many schools in as possible. Without doing this we would have had to run double the number of zones to cover the demand. So, after the hype, exactly how big were the zones in November? Here … Continue reading →

Posted on December 17, 2015 by in Capacity, Evaluation, Event News, News | Comments Off

“The whole experience has been incredibly rewarding”

After every event we ask the zone winners to write a short blog post to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what the winners from November’s zones had to say… Sara, Ageing Zone I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here was a continuous surprise. I was surprised I was selected, I was surprised I wasn’t evicted and I was amazed I won! I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t think kids will be so interested in my work; I work with animals and I was scared a lot of people would be against it and they would be aggressive about it. But no, I had amazing and clever questions I didn’t even expect. … Continue reading →

Posted on December 15, 2015 by in Event News, IAS Event, News | Comments Off

¡Allá vamos! I’m a Scientist goes to Spain

We always like to spread the I’m a Scientist love. The event currently runs in Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, the United States, and of course here in the UK. This school year we are adding another country (and language!) to the I’m a Scientist map: Somos Científicos (We Are Scientists) in Spain! The first “Somos Científicos” event will run 11th – 22th April 2016, involving Spanish schools and scientists. The project site is already live, so head to somoscientificos.es for more information or if you just want to test out your ‘conversational’ (according to your CV) level of Spanish. Now any fledgling project needs both schools and scientists to be a success. We know we have Spanish friends who have taken part in I’m a Scientist UK in the past, and we have a small favour to ask of you: Please spread the word about Somos Cientificos to your colleagues, friends, family … Continue reading →

Posted on October 13, 2015 by modjosh in News | Comments Off

Moderator Vacancies: November 2015

Hello! It’s us! We’re looking for moderators for our November 2015 events! I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer are award-winning online events allowing students (from 9 – 18) to interact with real live scientists and engineers. We’re looking for 2 moderators to work on the next event which will run from the 9th to the 20th November 2015. We will also be running I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer in Ireland. Your key responsibilities will be: checking and approving questions adding appropriate keywords and tags logging and keeping track of questions, comments and dialogue checking the site for errors and inappropriate content and usernames moderating live chats helping to run the site It’s actually a lot of fun as the students (and scientists) are quick and funny and full of energy. And hey, promoting science engagement is a good thing, am I right?! What we’d like from you.. You should be … Continue reading →

Posted on October 7, 2015 by modemily in Event News, News, Science Engagement | Comments Off

Too many teachers

Being popular is a nice problem to have. We’re running a total of 10 zones in November in the UK. It’s the most we’ve done at this time of year. But it is not enough. As the new school year started we asked our list of over 2,000 teachers how many classes they would like for our November events. 202 teachers requested a total of 537 classes. The problem is we only have space for 250 classes. Up to 8,500 students will be missing out on science engagement this November. We spent an uncomfortable afternoon last week working out how to allocate the spaces we had. Should we prioritise teachers who been regular supporters and taken part in lean times? Or new schools so that more teachers get a chance to experience our little bundle of joy? Or rural schools? Or schools in deprived areas? In the end we capped … Continue reading →

Posted on October 2, 2015 by ModShane in Capacity, Event News, News | Comments Off

Harwell Open Day Zone Report

On Saturday July 11th the Harwell Research Campus opened its doors to the public. 10,000 people were expected to come and see some of the most complicated and cutting edge science equipment in the world. Hundreds of volunteers working with that equipment were on hand to speak with the public and show them what happens. We created a Harwell Zone to allow visitors to text in questions. It was promoted using posters as above. The logic was that with 10,000 visitors some would not get to ask their questions, or may think of it later, or possibly be too shy to ask in person. It was a family day. Working with the over-worked (understatement klaxon just sounded) outreach team at Diamond and Harwell we set the zone up and promoted it to exhibitors. It wasn’t a great success. A mere 14 questions were sent. However in the interest of continual … Continue reading →

Posted on August 24, 2015 by ModShane in Evaluation, News | Comments Off

“I’m a Scientist is definitely the most fun I’ve had in my lab coat”

After every event we ask the zone winners to write a short blog post to be sent to all the students in who took part in the zone. It’s a great way for the scientists to reflect on the previous two weeks and thank all the students for voting for them. Let’s take a look at what they had to say… Jess, Colour Zone I’m a Scientist is definitely the most fun I’ve had in my lab coat. The questions were incredible, totally unpredictable and the scope was well beyond that going on academic circles; by the final I’d tried to prepare a few ‘go-to’ answers, “What is colour?”, “What happened during the big bang?”, “Will we ever cure cancer?..but I couldn’t predict a single one! After the 30 minute live chats my fingers were tingling so much I had to delay measuring polymers in the clean room. I cannot … Continue reading →

Posted on July 27, 2015 by modjosh in Event News, IAS Event, News | Comments Off

Launching questions into the Thermosphere

From the effects of solar radiation on people living on the International Space Station, to opinions on space travel; there are few topics which inspire quite so many questions as Space. Another question, asked probably in every live chat in every Space Zone we’ve run: “Have you ever been to space?” The answer has always been “no”… Until now. This year, Tim Peake will become the first British ESA astronaut to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) and thanks to funding from the UK Space Agency and the support of the European Space Agency, our latest project will bring the buzz and excitement of Tim’s mission into classrooms all over the UK. Our latest project gives students the opportunity to put their questions to the people behind Tim’s mission — members of mission control, researchers with experiments running on the ISS, trainers, and scientists and engineers involved in the design … Continue reading →

Posted on July 15, 2015 by modjosh in News | Comments Off

Chemistry outreach secure for 3 years

I’m a Scientist is about showing the diversity of science to students and whilst we’ve always been strong with biologists and physicists until 2015 we were a little light on chemists. So we are especially delighted that the Royal Society of Chemistry have decided to support our project over 3 years through to the end of 2017. We will be running 9 zones across the UK and Ireland using this funding. Part of the arrangement is that we’ll be including RSC members in five of our General Zones to show school students the full breadth of science. Rio Hutchings, from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Outreach team, says: We’re really proud to be involved in inspiring scientific discovery in a whole range of ways and I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an excellent example. It’s great for both students and for putting science communicators through their paces, … Continue reading →

Posted on July 13, 2015 by modjosh in News, Project News | Comments Off

What can you do?

I want to take part with my class ❯

I want to take part as a scientist ❯

I want to find out about funding I’m a Scientist ❯

What is I’m a Scientist?

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here is an online activity where school students get to meet and interact with scientists.

It’s a competition between scientists, where the students are the judges.

Students challenge the scientists over intense, fast-paced, online live Chats. Then they Ask the scientists all the questions they want to, and Vote for their favourite scientist to win a prize of £500 to communicate their work with the public.