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. 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/scientists 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. I also bought some multimeters, which we use to show why certain drinks are better than others at replacing the electrolytes we lose in sweat when we exercise. £450 was spent on equipment, and £50 on a stall holder fee at the Southampton Healthy Living Festival. One of … Continue reading →

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  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 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! The game would be called Cellverse – the player would explore a vast abandoned laboratory complex, … Continue reading →

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. 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 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. One of the questions that I got asked a lot in the healthy cities zone was where the most polluted place in the world was, so it seemed appropriate that I spent my prize money supporting the Michael Pinsky pollution pod installation at MediaCityUK in Manchester … 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. 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 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 … 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. 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 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. A second room was … Continue reading →

Suzi Gage won the Brain Zone in June 2011, when she was a PhD student at the University of Bristol. Suzi wanted to put her prize money towards starting a podcast that explained the science of substance use. “Hopefully, it will help teenagers to understand the effects of recreational drugs, and tease out the truth about the risks from the confusing message sometimes presented in the media.” 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. 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 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. The first of these is a charity called The Wulugu Project. They do amazing work in the poorest regions of Ghana in Africa, providing the chance for … Continue reading →

Ross was voted the winner of the Tungsten Zone in November 2015. Here he writes about using his £500 prize money on running an interactive exhibit about the cardiovascular system.

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 ran an interactive exhibit showcasing how the cardiovascular system can rapidly and unconsciously change in response to the world going on around us. This showed the subtle and unique relationship the brain has with the rest of the body, demonstrating that our hearts and blood vessels quickly adapt not only in the face of exercise and physical stress, but to our emotions and thought processes too. Volunteers were attached to a monitoring device and were given a series of challenges, whilst they watched their cardiovascular systems change in real time before their own eyes. Continue reading →

A year ago, I was lucky enough to be voted the winner of the Heart Zone by school children who participated to the sessions. I won £500 I had to spend on STEM outreach activities and report below on the activities they have helped funding.

I have been a Project Manager for Native Scientist for a year and a half now, and a participant of their workshops for more than 5 years. Native Scientist sends scientists to bilingual schools attended by migrant children to promote STEM subjects and empowerment through science. The workshops last about 1 hours and a half and are run on a speed-dating format where scientists spend about 15 minutes with a group of children before rotating to another group. Half of the money from the I’m A Scientist prize entirely funded 4 workshops in May 2019 that took place in a French school located in London. In total, 102 children aged between 7 and 10 years old have been exposed to a wide range of topics from cancerous cells to brain diseases to artificial intelligence and 84 reported having learnt “a lot”. Continue reading →

Matt was voted the winner of the Actinium Zone in June 2017. Here he writes about how he used his £500 prize money to produce a sci-art exhibition. 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 My favourite thing about science is the creativity behind it. I try to explore this creativity in all of the public engagement and outreach work I do when talking about science. I used the £500 to put on an exhibition of science art in Bristol for 2 weeks in May 2018, Creative Reactions Bristol. We had 35 scientists and 35 artists work together to produce pieces of art that explored the scientists’ research. We had over 2,000 people explore the exhibition and talk to scientists and artists involved. I am continuing with the science art exhibition and … Continue reading →

Liam was voted the winner of the Sustainability Zone in November 2018. Here he writes about how he used his £500 prize money to develop a session for children and students to learn about climate change using VR headsets. 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 purchase virtual reality headsets to develop an outreach session with the University of Leeds. Whenever I taught the science or solutions of climate change, I was frequently told by children that they couldn’t visualise environments that are on the other side of the world, let alone how they are changing. So, I bought an array of Oculus headsets so that children can immerse themselves in coral reefs, stand on top of glaciers, or shake hands with great primates in the … Continue reading →