Winner Reports

Ali was voted the winner of the Food Zone in June 2018. She writes about how she spent her £500 prize money to help teach people about nutrition.

I spent the prize money on creating a series of resources to help explain nutrition science, and get people talking about what’s in their food. I bought some knives that are safe for under 18s to use in the kitchen, and regularly use these for cooking classes.

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Lyn was voted the winner of the Disease Zone in March 2019. She writes about the process of using her £500 prize money to try to create a video game 

For as long as I can remember, I have been frustrated that learning science still largely involves memorising dry words and static pictures. My dearest wish, as a student, was for there to be a fun, interactive way for me to assign meaning to the jargon, and see how individual concepts related to one another. So I didn’t hesitate to propose writing a science education computer game when I participated in I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here!

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Daniel was voted the winner of the Healthy Cities Zone in June 2018. Here he writes about how he used his £500 prize money to teach school students and members of the public about pollution.

Following my experience with I’m A Scientist I was keen to do something with the prize money that would directly engage with school children to raise awareness of air pollution and the risks of exposure with an experience in which they could truly visualise it. Continue reading →

Oli was voted the winner of the Neptunium Zone in November 2017. Here he writes about how he used his £500 prize money to create a set of 3D printed pollen grain models to allow people a close-up look at pollen without a microscope.

Before I started my PhD I was a science teacher. After school finished one day, I sat in my lab and thought about the research I knew I would be starting soon. If I were to come back to my school as a full-on scientist, could I make my work seem interesting to my old students? My science is all about uncovering the past and future of one of Brazil’s coolest forests, and a big part of it involves using fossil pollen as microscopic time machines. Pollen’s amazing stuff, it’s beautiful and unbelievably tough, but it’s hard to enjoy without decent microscopes – something that can be tricky to get in schools. Continue reading →

Kelly was voted the winner of the Fermium Zone in November 2018. Here she writes about how she used her £500 prize money to introduce GCSE students to the benefits of animals to mental health, as well as how to conduct qualitative psychology research.

The event was one I initially planned way back before taking part in I’m A Scientist, and was an interactive workshop/engagement session with 54 Year 10 pupils about the importance of animals for mental health and wellbeing. We had three rooms which pupils rotated around in which they met a group of therapy animals from a charity (rabbits, guinea pigs, a skinny pig and an amazing dog called Tyler) and heard about the work the charity does. Continue reading →

Sam was voted the winner of the Sustaining Health Zone in March 2015. Here he writes about how the two organisations he decided to donate his £500 prize money to will benefit from it.

I was lucky enough to win the Sustaining Health Zone in March 2015. Fortunately, the research institute where I work already has an excellent range of outreach opportunities, which I continue to enjoy participating in (when I can find time to escape the lab!). Therefore, I decided to use the money to support a pair of organisations helping students in less fortunate areas of the world. Continue reading →