Category Archives: Winner Reports

Elliot was voted the winner of the Bismuth Zone in June 2016. Here he writes about using the £500 prize money to bring students from across Yorkshire to carry out DNA analysis in labs at the University of York. 

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

We used the money to purchase consumables (DNA, reagents, disposable tips etc.) to allow groups of pupils from schools in North, West and East Yorkshire to spend a day at the University of York carrying out DNA fingerprinting. Pupils were presented with a sample of DNA from a “Crime Scene” and asked to match this sample to one of 5 suspects. The money allowed over 200 pupils the chance to experience carrying out practical work that they would not have otherwise been able to do in school as well as promoting bioscience as a career option. The activity was supported by the biology department at the University of York, who provided laboratory space and staff to run the events.

Senga was voted the winner of the Plutonium Zone in November 2017. She used her prize money to hold an activity day for school children at the University of Dundee, which you can read more about below.

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

With the prize money I invited 120 children from areas near Dundee University an event called “Cell-ebration of Science”. Many divisions from the School of life sciences came together (Molecular Microbiology, Forensic Anthropology, Plant Science, Protein Phosphorylation to name just a few) to deliver a broad range of activities that ranged from messy fun to coding to ensure that all learning styles were accommodated for. There were things like learning about the bacteria that live in your tummy by making fake poo, badge making, making your genes jump and so much more. There were also drama workshops held that addressed scientific topics and questions in a very fun way, these proved to be a huge hit and it was great to have something a little different for the participants to do.

The activities were well established and all resources were available so there was no expense involved with delivering them, this meant that the prize money from IASUK plus generous additional funding from the University of Dundee outreach fund I could cover the full cost of transport for the participating schools and also provide a pizza lunch as a treat for everyone.

It was very important to me to ensure that this event came with no expense at all to the schools or carers of children – some schools do not have the funds to cover transport costs and parents may not be in a position to subsidise these. There can also be a huge stigma with packed lunches, particularly the ones that come for those that receive free school meals. I didn’t want anyone to be, or feel left out.

Feedback from the event was very positive, particularly regarding the diversity of activities available and I’m very grateful I had the opportunity to deliver such a successful event. I got so much from just being involved. One of the big things was that by chatting online to so many learners they all really helped me to think about my research and the way I do it, that’s helped me so much in my job! It also helped me to pick activities to do at the event because I learned about what they found interesting and things they wanted to learn about.

Chris was voted the winner of the Reproduction Zone in 2013.

I wanted to provide some resources for my local school as there were hardly any scientific books in the library (which weren’t textbooks). We had a little unveiling ceremony and the librarian was thrilled with the new materials. I did choose most of the books myself but I did get a little bit of help from her as I was concerned I would pick the wrong ones!

I hope the books help future students engage with science and show that science is not only be a career but also fun, interesting and important to understand. The kids all seem to have loved the new books and I think in general it was a safe investment!

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

Liz was voted the winner of the Epidemic Zone in June 2017. Here she writes about using the £500 prize money to hold an event at her university to engage students with mathematics research and careers, and to develop a worksheet and interactive web-app.

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 majority of my prize money was used to fund an outreach event I helped develop, organise, and run on the 29th June 2018 at my workplace (the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester).

The event was created for female year 12 school children with the aim of inspiring them to pursue maths at university and find out more about research as a career. In order to provide accessible role-models for the attendees, all of the organisers, speakers, and workshop leaders were women working in research mathematics; women are under-represented in mathematics jobs and particularly in academic research positions in maths.

The day consisted of three talks and a selection of interactive workshops. My personal favourite talk was about female mathematicians throughout history. This was a great chance to give some airtime to lesser known female mathematicians who made great contributions despite often being faced with rather challenging circumstances.

The impact of this was perfectly summarised in feedback written by one of the attending students who said “hearing about women who have achieved something in worse conditions than we have nowadays has inspired me to handle being in a male dominated job”.

Try the SIR model app for yourself and make virtual people ill

As well as organising the day, I designed and ran a workshop on my research area of mathematical modelling of infectious diseases. I made a worksheet and interactive web-app for the students to use in order to gain an understanding of the SIR model: one of the most frequently used models in my research area.

My experiences on I’m a Scientist certainly helped me think about how to best describe my work to school students. I also got advice from friends who are secondary school teachers to ensure the material was at the correct level.

The feedback from both the students and their teachers about the event was very positive. A lot of the students found the day interesting and fun. I hope to make this an annual event, and we will build on constructive criticism given in the feedback, for example by letting students decide which workshops to attend in advance of the day and aiming it at year 10 students who are more likely to have not yet made decisions about university.

Designing and creating this web-app and worksheet required quite a large time commitment; in my experience as an academic doing outreach we are “funding rich” but “time poor”. Therefore, I aim to use these resources at further outreach events this year to make the most of the time I have invested.

Most of the spending was related to the Women in Research mathematics event described above, which also had funding from additional sources for lunch and the travel costs of speakers from beyond Manchester. Some of the prize money was also used to cover the travel costs of two speakers to the Databeers Warwick event held on 30th November 2017. I anticipate using the last bit of the prize money to fund my travel to future outreach events where I use my worksheet and web-app.

Duncan was voted the winner of the Uranium Zone in November 2017. Here he reports on using the £500 prize money to fund a new podcast about medical research, Not Exactly Rocket Science.

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

Winning I’m a Scientist came with two immediate thoughts: “great, I won!”, and “oh no, now I have to make a podcast and I have no idea how to do that!”. I did some research and spent the money on recording equipment, hosting, and a cool domain name (notexactlyrocketscience.fm), then started to charm researchers into being interviewed for it.

The fan favourite ‘Best host impression of the thinking face emoji’ competition takes up the first 20 minutes of each episode.

It was pretty exciting when the first episode went live on the 1st of June, and it’s been really fun to learn so much about what people who work in my building are actually researching, and how that research gets done. Listen to all the episodes so far here.

As well as the podcast, I’ve been involved for about a year in another project called Circuits!, in which we’ve co-created teaching materials so that high school teachers can use our research to enthuse kids about science while they’re learning about light and sound.

I’m hoping to create a bit of a mashup at some point with an episode of the podcast all about Circuits!, answering questions from students who have used the tool. My experience in I’m a Scientist should be invaluable there.

Laura was voted the winner of the Rhodium Zone in March 2013.

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 set up a website (Generate Science) for school students to post blogs about current science topics and developed resources to help train the students. I was unable to find teachers who felt they had the time available to be the test classes for the platform, and then I moved to the US for a postdoc position. I still hope to eventually work on getting the website running when I return to the UK, by focusing on a local school so that I can run training in person for the first trials. As this did not go as expected, I decided to donate the remaining half of my prize money to an organisation I knew would immediately be able to make good use of it for outreach purposes, and so in 2016 I donated £250 to the Cambridge Earth Sciences Museum Time Truck team.

Dawn was voted the winner of the Thallium Zone in June 2016. Here she writes about using her £500 prize money to fund local community events called Fun Palaces at which she has run activities based around neuroscience.

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 original plan was to create a webcomic about being a scientist, trying in particular to focus on being a woman of ethnic minority. I’d drawn up draft comics, scribbled ideas into a notebook, but I never got the time to actually finalise the comic or build the website. I decided to donate the money to Fun Palaces, which is an annual event popping up at several locations in the UK. A Fun Palace is held by the community, for the community. It should be free, local, inclusive, and an opportunity to create a mishmash of arts and science (and much more). £500 went straight to Fun Palaces which will help fund running workshops, travel, support for local Fun Palace groups, etc.

I’ve been involved in running activities at the Brockwell Lido Fun Palace for 3 years in a row from 2014, and it’s been a blast being able to learn from the experience each year. The first year, we created a big brain on a board and invited the community to write memories into the brain and many people were really excited to find out we were actually neuroscientists.

Since then we’ve also run activities like dye chromatography and making brain models and all of these have piqued interest from the community asking about what we do, what our research is on – which was great!

Since I’m a Scientist, I was also involved in running a public engagement event at the Science Museum, with Alzheimer’s Research UK in March 2018. We ran many activities for both children and adults, such as making a neuron, memory games, showed them slides of real human brain tissue, and a lab skills station where participants could try and dissect brains (actually fruit!) and practise pipetting and changing cell media.

Alex was voted the winner of the Europium Zone in November 2014. Here he writes about donating his £500 prize money to the Barts Cancer Institute to train aspiring research scientists.

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

When I first entered I’m a Scientist I had already decided, if I won, that I would donate the money to the Barts Cancer Institute Science Training for Aspriring Research Scientists (BCI STARS). The STARS project is a scheme that everyone here at BCI is very proud of, and I wanted to do my small bit in supporting that. Having been asked by a lot of the children during the competition what I was planning to do with the money they all thought the scheme was brilliant and wished they had their own local version.

 From John Marshall – head of STARS programme the money was donated to…

BCI STARS- A programme to introduce school students to scientific research and to train PhD students in science communication.

In 2014, a group of Year 13 students from schools that historically had had relatively poor progression to university for their students, joined PhD students at Barts Cancer Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London, for the first Science Training for Aspiring Research Scientists (STARS) programme.  In small groups the students had a full-time one week tuition in basic cell and molecular biology techniques taught to them by PhD students. Thus students learned:

• How to correctly use micro-pipettes and automatic pipette guns
• Sterile tissue culture of cancer cells
• Biochemical analysis of cancer cells using SDS-PAGE and western blotting
• How to label biomarkers in cancer tissue using immunochemistry and analysis by microscopy
• How to purify, analyse and clone DNA
• How to run polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) of cheek cell DNA

Photo: BCI STARS

In addition the PhD students learned the type of language that is required to describe the scientific bases of techniques they use on a daily basis. The programme does cost money and for the first year we could not find any funding.  Thus I was thrilled when one of BCI’s PhD student’s, Alex Rhys, donated his £500 prize that he had won from I’m a Scientist, get me out of here which helped enormously to cover costs.

The experience of both the students and the PhD demonstrators (now referred to as DEMONS) was extremely positive and encouraged the continuation of the programme which now has had two dozen Year 12 students in both 2015 and 2016 and about 35 different PhD students participating. All the school students are identified by the charity ACCESS Work Placements who work directly with schools to give students a real work experience. A very exciting development is that two new STARS programmes, the Blizard STARS (also at Queen Mary University, run by Dr Cleo Bishop) and King’s STARS (at Kings College London, run by Professor Maddy Parsons) started in 2016 also with great success and we are keen for other institutions to develop their own STARS programmes. Thus Alex’s initial generous gift has helped make this happen and I remain extremely grateful to him for his generosity.

Photo: BCI STARS

All of those students from our first cohort who replied to our enquiries entered their first choice university. The courses included medicine, dentistry, physics, biomedical sciences and mining. STARS was a subject of discussion at the university interviews so we hope their experience helped in their success. Below are comments from several students taken directly from their feedback forms.  More information and photographs of our STARS programme can be found here. Contact me if you are interested in starting a programme at your university.

Students’ feedback on their experience of STARS

“ I hoped to gain more information on research science and also learn one of the basic skills needed to carry out the experiments, and this course has covered every expectation I had before starting”

“Speaking to the PhD students was really useful-treated me like an equal which helped me gain knowledge and confidence”

“I’ve thought research science was boring but after the programme I started to like research science as you get to work on your own projects and be independent and I’ve got to know that I actually like working in (a) laboratory”

“It made me realize that I can go to any university I like and I can do the course that I want to do”

“Whiteboard explanation sessions were really good and gave a sort of “school explanation”- a format we are used to and helped in understanding more”

 “Do you have any feedback on the teaching approaches used?” “Continue! Enjoyed every bit of it. I wish I could join again. Thank you.”

Ryan was voted the winner of the Thulium Zone in June 2015.

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

Three years ago I had an idea for a small project to run at my institution – however they weren’t interested in helping. So I pushed the money into my local community by running science and maths sessions for children preparing for examinations. It was successful in that all 20 students saw 1-3 grade rise. I spent the money predominantly on travel and stationary for the kids.

Zarah was voted the winner of the Plants Zone in November 2016. Here she writes about using her £500 prize money to run a Science Fair in the University of Stirling.

If you’d like 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 I’m a Scientist competition was a fantastic experience. Talking to the students enabled me to gain a better perspective on how young adults perceive scientists, what they enjoy/hate about science and what might have been stopping them taking science further in their education.

This has been particularly important in terms of outreach events, in ensuring we are capturing those students who feel that science isn’t for them and trying to change their minds! I have been particularly determined to change the perception of female scientists to both boys and girls.

On March 17^th we ran a Science Fair in the University of Stirling, aimed at students aged 5-15 years old. In total there were 35 volunteers on the day from multiple organisations within and out with the University of Stirling.

We collaborated with Forth Valley College science department, Stirling Library and IT department, Centre for Aquaculture in Stirling and multiple departments with the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Sports Science in the University of Stirling. The event featured a range of scientific activities.

Staff from Biological and Environmental Sciences department ran chemistry experiments, sessions on animal behaviour and a focus on conservation, with attractions including ‘seed bombs’, ‘bug hotel’ and ‘building a bat’. Children were also able to learn about renewable energy by building wind turbines.

A demonstration of 3D printing and scanning was hosted by Information Services staff; Aquaculture held a ‘What is it?’ quiz using scanning electron microscope images; Computing Sciences and Maths taught sustainable agriculture using Lego; and Sports Sciences explained heart monitoring, muscles and neurons. Staff from Forth Valley College held sessions on ‘life at microscopic level’, forensic; and ‘understanding your DNA’.

We had approximately 250 students attend the Science Fair which was an increase on our March 16^th 2017 Science Fair of 150 attendees. I felt that this year’s Science Fair was a big advancement on our previous events. The main reason being that we were able to use the prize money to run competitions and enable volunteers to buy materials for their activities.

In each of the science book prizes each scientist wrote a message of encouragement in the cover. Our event even made it into the local paper which can only be a positive influence for the next event in March 2019.

I hope that the Science Fair become an integral part of the Natural Science Faculty outreach agenda and I will continue to run and organise this event in the future. I spent £250 on science books for competition prizes (I still have books for next year’s Science fair), £70 on poster printing for activity stalls, £55 for equipment (e.g. colouring pens, blue tack, sweets), £30 for subsistence for voluntary staff which included 1 water and a bag of crisps per person and £90 for stickers for completion of 4 activities at the fair.

Photography by Whyler Photos of Stirling
www.whylerphotos.com

James was voted the winner of the Tellurium Zone in November 2013. Here he writes about using his £500 prize money to produce outreach videos for volcano science.

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

So far I have used the money to produce outreach videos for volcano science. I have had very good feedback, and one of the videos is now featured on one of the University of Bristol science outreach webpages where it has reached approximately 500 people!

I spent the money on video equipment and am now developing an outreach website to host the videos on. I am now a lecturer at the University of Exeter and continue my outreach work as a Science Outreach Officer at Cornwall Sea to Stars.