Winner Reports

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 →

Stephanie was voted the winner of the Climate Zone in March 2018. Here she writes about how she has used her £500 prize money to buy filming equipment and software to start up a science YouTube channel. 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 have started a YouTube channel called Science with Steph. I have been a consumer of online video for a long time and know a few small creators, and so I decided to take the plunge and start a channel myself! It has been hard work (growing a channel from scratch these days can be very slow going), but very enjoyable. I have learnt many skills such as producing, editing and filming videos. I have also learned how to talk about quite tricky subjects in a simple way. … Continue reading →

Sophie was voted the winner of the Americium Zone in March 2018. Here she writes about how her £500 prize money is being used to make materials such as 3D fossils to teach children about palaeontology. 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 decided to donate the money to the Scarborough Museums Trust, specifically to the Rotunda Museum who run both free and paid science workshops for primary and secondary school children. I wanted to donate to the museum because they are a small establishment who do not receive the same sort of funding as some of the larger museums. Furthermore, it is also the local museum in the town in which I grew up, so I thought it would be nice to give something back to the school communities … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Sanjib was voted the winner of the Drug Resistance Zone in November 2017. Here he writes about using his £500 prize money to involve local school students in a research project. 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 main purpose of this public engagement activity was to inspire and stimulate a young generation of future scientists locally as well as to engage and enhance public awareness of antibiotic resistance and superbugs. I first created a link with St Francis Xavier 6th form College through their Biology teacher-in-charge, Ms Nimerta Virdee who was also a part-time MSc Microbiology student at Birkbeck. As a number of the young students at this college are from non-traditional and low socio-economic backgrounds, the school-based science project has helped to raise their aspirations, motivation and confidence to … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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, … Continue reading →

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. 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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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, … Continue reading →