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It’s the end of only day two and already the mods have approved over 1,200 questions form the 1,400 students registered so far on the site. Today the scientists typed their way through 13 live chats. Fingers are tiring. Second day of live chats and question answering for @imascientist and my typing fingers are sore.Exhilarating! #IAS2012 — Leila Battison (@leilabattison) March 13, 2012   The students are still going good guns: Our sports scientists are being asked if we could have two hearts and what the impact would be on performance. Space scientists are providing their views on Super Mario Galaxy and the science involved. In the Quantum Zone Suzanne gives a very full explanation of the maths of juggling and the cute award lands in Energy Zone: Woould you rather have a puppy sized elephant pr an elephant sized puppy?   Enjoy.  

Today was a big day. We kicked of 13 live chats across 7 zones; introducing both scientists and students. Scientists have been getting quite excite but nervous over the weekend. Vicky Young (scientist) tweeted “Im a little nervous for it all now. The live chats seem like they might be very intense! Speed typing would help!” Vicky wasn’t the only scientist expecting both the physical and computer strain. Leila Battison tweeted that she’d “even changed the batteries in my keyboard, anticipating overusage!” The newly trained mod(erator)s were also feeling the heat. One mod tweeted “Just gearing up for @imascientist #IAS2011 the words baptism and fire spring to mind.” Once the live chats had started, scientists and students soon got the hang of it. A common theme was apocalyptic mortality, with lots of students asking if the world will end in 2012. Scientists couldn’t give definite answers for these questions, showing scientists don’t … Continue reading →

It’s only a matter of weeks before I’m a Scientist starts in March so it’s time to announce the scientists and schools taking part. The event will be running from 12th-23rd March, coinciding with National Science and Engineering week. Zones such as Energy and Sports tie in particularly well with this year’s theme Our World in Motion. Schools Over 100 schools will be taking part and as usual there’s a big variety in schools involved, from Weymouth to Glasgow, and even Hungary. We’re hoping that, as in previous events, energy levels will be high and classes at these schools will have a great experience. One teacher in June 2011 said: “You could have powered a small town off the energy the kids produced this during our session”.  Scientists As ever competition for scientists was very tough, and choosing the final scientists to take part was challenging. We had to turn … Continue reading →

In I’m a Scientist this June 2012 we’re scheduling the event a bit differently. In previous years we’ve run one big event in June. But this year we’re running 2 smaller events in the summer term, with the following dates: 11th – 22nd June 25th June – 6th July The reason we’re doing this isn’t just to give ourselves more work, but to give as many UK schools as possible the chance to take part. In previous years we’ve not had many Scottish and Northern Irish schools take part (Scotland and Northern Ireland are pretty sparse on our June 2011 participants map) because the event clashes with the earlier end of term. And with examinations and an unusually late half term and bank holiday for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee to fit around, there’s no one fortnight that would suit everyone. So this year we’re running an earlier event and later … Continue reading →

We’ve decided on the 8 zones running in the March I’m a Scientist event. In mid November the Wellcome Trust agreed to fund 50% of the costs of I’m a Scientist for the next 3 years, and we’ve also got 4 sponsors supporting themed zones. The 3 General zones are named after elements and will have a mix of scientists from all disciplines. We’re through to Gallium, Germanium and Selenium in the periodic table for March. The chemists among you may notice that we’re sadly not running an Arsenic Zone, because of the problems it may cause with firewalls. The 5 themed zones are open for scientists who are members of, or funded by, the zone sponsors: Electromagnetic Zone: sponsored by the Science & Technology Facilities Council Energy Zone: sponsored by the RCUK Energy Programme Quantum Zone: sponsored by the Institute of Physics Space Zone: sponsored by the Institute of … Continue reading →

We would like to congratulate the following students who have been named as the student winners in their zones of the STFC sponsored November 2011 event. Subatomic Zone – Aaron Dinas, Littleover Community School Zinc Zone – Anu Elegbede, St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School Well done to Aaron and Anu! The moderators thought they both asked good questions and really engaged with the event. They will each receive a student winner certificate and WH Smith vouchers. We would also like to thank all the other students who participated. There were some brilliant live chats and thought provoking questions asked which challenged the scientists. As one scientist said “the questions are great – was just discussing some of them with my research group at lunch“.

For the next three weeks 14 researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will be talking with school students from a local Cambridgeshire school in Genome Futures, an I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here! event. Genome Futures is part of the Wellcome Trust’s 75th anniversary celebrations, where Wellcome Trust-funded centres, such as the Sanger Institute, are running events to engage their local communities. The Sanger Institute is a research centre that specialises in studying diseases that have an impact on global health by investigating genomes. During the event students from Sawston Village College will ASK scientists questions, CHAT with them during a live chat, and VOTE for the scientist who has best talked about their work. But unlike previous I’m a Scientist events there are no evictions. All the scientists will keep answering questions from the students until the end of the event on Friday 16th December. The event … Continue reading →