Winner Reports

Carmen won the Immune System Zone in March of 2015 and has already been hard at work making the most her £500. Here Carmen fills us in on what she’s been up to… Thanks to the I’m a Scientist prize money, I’ve gotten to step out of my research laboratory at the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and talk with students and members of the public about science and science careers. During the competition, I had a blast meeting the many students online that participated in the I’m a Scientist chats, and they asked fantastic questions about infectious diseases, bacteria and vaccines. I participate in outreach to students as a STEM ambassador because not only do I want to spread the good word about bacteria and vaccines, I really want students to see research scientists as real people, rather than people always in lab coats and safety goggles. I want them … Continue reading →

Fiona was the winner of the general science Promethium Zone in 2014. Over the last year she’s been hard at work on her project, funded by the £500 prize. We asked her to tell us how she’s been getting on… In June 2014 (after a lot of fast typing!) I was delighted to be told I was the winner of the Promethium Zone! I had a lot of fun engaging with so many people across the UK that I wanted to be able to do the same with whatever I spent the prize money on. So I decided to take up the challenge of making videos that anybody could watch anywhere. Making a video was quite daunting because it was something I had never done before. However, I eventually just went for it and spent the money on a high quality video set up. I then rounded up some of my friends and … Continue reading →

John won the Organs Zone in March 2014. Here he tells us how he used his £500 prize money… Queen Mary University London, where I work, is home to the Centre of the Cell educational charity, “the first science education centre in the world to be located within working biomedical research laboratories”. After winning the March 2014 I’m a Scientist Get me out of here: Organs Zone I donated my prize money to support the great work Centre of the Cell do for scientific communication and outreach. Centre of the Cell is located in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets, East London. The Centre aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and healthcare professionals, get people talking about biomedical research. and widen participation with further and higher education, especially in our local community. Educational sessions are run in the Centre of the Cell’s state-of-the-art ‘Pod’ and supported by workshops, mentoring and revision programmes, … Continue reading →

Keith won the Hormones Zone in June 2013. We asked him to tell us what he’s been up to with his £500 prize money and here is what he said… In May 2015 I was able to do outreach at the Drimnagh Castle Primary and Secondary Schools in Dublin, Ireland which I attended myself as a student. There I did 40 min workshop sessions with three groups of 6th class students (11-12 yrs) and four groups of 5th year biology/chemistry students (16-17 yrs). I used the prize money to buy reagents/small piece of single use items for the workshops (e.g. chemicals for making the tissues transparent, glucometer strips for showing blood sugars, etc). I have to say I loved it and got some great feedback and engagement with the kids. I got permission from my supervisor and brought back some research equipment for recording blood pressure to do some demos and had got some … Continue reading →

Andrew was the winner of the Vision Zone in June 2014. Here he tells us about the project he’s been able to do using his £500 prize… I had heard that I’m a Scientist was a fast and furious experience and boy was it! In the live chats, the questions came so fast, I thought my fingers were going to catch fire. But what a great experience too. It really felt like we were engaging with kids who hadn’t considered science interesting before. The format is great: being able to answer questions in detail in the evenings, and answering live questions (about ALL sorts of stuff!) during the lessons. With the prize money I promised I would be buying some Lego to try and help teach computer vision (what you can do with a computer and a camera). But what to build? We then came across a great website which shows you how … Continue reading →

Roy won the Colour Zone in March 2014. We asked him to tell us all about how he’s used his £500 prize and here is what he said… Well, it has been an incredibly busy year and a half since I’m a Scientist! My research has taken up almost all of my time but I have managed to get out and about to schools to deliver a few talks on chemistry, meteorites, solar system formation, the Rosetta mission, formation of comets (making a comet from dry ice is cool – literally!) and the origins of life (the organic building blocks and where they form in space). With the money I won I have bought lots of items that I can use to model and explain what I am talking about. I have bought a piece of a Campo del Cielo iron meteorite, a tektite (a blob of terrestrial rock made molten by an … Continue reading →

Naomi won the Neodymium Zone in June 2014. Since then she’s been working hard to make good use of her £500 and she sent us this update on how it’s all going…. Last June I had the pleasure of talking to students in the Neodymium Zone over 2 weeks, answering many intuitive questions and enjoying great discussions with classes during the live chats. I was completely surprised when I was voted as the winner, and very happy! Winning £500 to spend on science communication opened up so many ways in which I could carry on engaging students in the world of microbiology. I had a few ideas of ways that I could do this, but it didn’t take me long to settle on the idea of a microbiology eBook. ‘Meet the Microbes’ started off as a fun Twitter conversation with colleagues a couple of years before and was actually made … Continue reading →

Jon Stone won the Technetium Zone in March 2013, and won £500 to spend on a science communication project. Jon wrote a piece about his experience and how he’s spent the £500 in an article for the EGU’s GeoQ Education magazine. We’ve summarised it here, but you can read the article in full at: egu.eu/newsletter/geoq/07/education.pdf Talking about I’m a Scientist, Jon says… “I wanted to have a go at the challenge of talking to young people in that situation. School kids asking questions about what you do – where else do you get that forum? The chance to answer interesting and exciting questions motivated me: they don’t ask the usual questions, but unique and wonderful things.” “The format is awesome, especially for this day and age – that’s how people are used to interacting with each other. Another thing is the excitement: because it had the competitive element, you want your work … Continue reading →

Mario won the Cells Zone in June 2013, and won £500 to spend on a science communication project. Let’s take a look at where the prize money has gone. Winning I’m a Scientist last June was a complete surprise, but also a great opportunity for me and my friends at Cosy Science to make the pilot activity of our Science club idea a reality. Cosy Science is a monthly Science café in which a top scientist speaks during 30 minutes about a hot scientific topic in the friendly atmosphere of a pub. The audience, a mixture of scientists and non-scientists, are encouraged to ask questions afterwards, creating a two-ways dialogue between the speaker and the attendees. Due to their format, the Cosy Science talks are for adults only. We wanted to try and create something different for kids, and that’s why we came with the idea of the CoSci Club! … Continue reading →