News

Who’s taking part in March??

We have now chosen the schools for I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! in March. Classes at these schools are going to have a great experience taking part. There’s a big variety in the schools taking part, with students involved from Jersey to Shetland. We are having six ‘zones’ in March. Three are general and named after elements (Chlorine, Argon and Potassium) and will contain a broad range of scientists and research areas. Themed zones were very popular in the March and June 2010 events, and this year we are having three themed zones – Forensic Science, Stem Cells and Space. The Space zone is really exciting as it is sponsored by the lovely Institute of Physics. We would have loved to include everyone that applied, and with four classes wanting to take part for every place, choosing the classes to take part was really hard. Many teachers wanted to take part … Continue reading

Posted on February 14, 2011 by in News | 9s Comments

Update: What Dean Whittaker did with his prize money…

Part of the fun of science is that plans regularly change and develop as research evolves. Dean’s plans for what he spent his I’m a Scientist winnings on have changed a little, and he has kindly updated us with what he spent the money on: My plan changed a little again and I bought a half-decent video camera and all the equipment to go with it – tripod, memory cards, case and 3 years replacement plan – for the people who run Bath Taps in Science festival for £250. This was so they can tape training videos and some funky stuff to put up on TV screens. They appear to be very thankful and will use it to make clips of this year’s event in March. The other £250 has gone to helping 50 pupils from Harwell Primary School get transport to Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for a visit and talk on … Continue reading

Posted on February 10, 2011 by in News | Tagged | Comments Off on Update: What Dean Whittaker did with his prize money…

Evaluation in 2011

Evaluation in 2011 In June 2011 we came to the end of a grant from the Wellcome Trust to run I’m a Scientist in 2010 and 2011. We’ve evaluated throughout the project and the final evaluation report is available to download below, as well as a shorter executive summary and summary sheet. 2010-2011 Evaluation Report– at 75 pages long it contains a lot information including the methodology, aims, key figures and data, findings and recommendations. Executive Summary – this outlines the main findings from the 2010-2011 Evaluation Report and looks at whether the objectives set at the start of the project have been met. Summary sheet of the event in 2010-2011 – this highlights some of the key numbers and quotes from evaluations, and reasons why the event works so well. We also produce summary reports of each zone and send them to the scientists and teachers in the zone. These … Continue reading

Posted on February 1, 2011 by modemily in Evaluation, News | Comments Off on Evaluation in 2011

What Dean Whittaker did with his prize money…

My original intention for spending the money was to provide support for schools to visit Rutherford Appleton Labs. However, it seems that usually extra support isn’t needed. The schools that are further away don’t want to take too much time travelling and the ones who are closer can usually afford to pay for themselves.  So I decided to leave half the money, £250, available for schools to apply to if they need financial support for any of the events that the lab runs. This should be enough to help one or two schools who couldn’t otherwise go. The other £250 will be used for Bath Taps into Science (http://www.bath.ac.uk/math-sci/extracurricular/bathtaps/). This is an annual science festival run during March in Bath (see the picture on the left). It’s set up in a huge hall. Different organizations have a few tables and people (a “stand”) and show off something to do with … Continue reading

Posted on January 26, 2011 by andyhowells in News | Tagged | Comments Off on What Dean Whittaker did with his prize money…

What Ben Still did with his prize money…

Ben Still won the Sodium Zone all the way back in June 2010. After his win Ben said “I will spend my winnings wisely!“, and so he has… Ben spent his money on setting up the Super K Sonic Booooum. This is a twenty-two meter long ‘river’ of water. People took a boat ride with Ben or someone he works with and learnt about Neutrino Physics on the journey. In order to go on the ride people had to wear white suits, wellies and hard hats! Over the days of the event they had over 600 visitors who took the boat ride and then participated in lectures afterwards. Ben enjoyed I’m a Scientist so much that he took part, and won again, in the STFC sponsored Subatomic Zone in the event last November! Ben’s plans for his second IAS prize money is to put it towards producing some podcasts and … Continue reading

Posted on January 12, 2011 by in News | Tagged | Comments Off on What Ben Still did with his prize money…

What Martin Coath did with his prize money…

I have used a small amount of the money to help me with a brilliant idea for the Cheltenham for the science festival. A group of about 8 of us did some `Science Busking’ – that is turning up unannounced at venues (mostly pubs) and getting people talking about science in bars, cafes, and in the street. It went really well! http://www.scandle.eu/news/science-2018down-the-pub2019-at-the-cheltenham-science-festival I built and took along a number of small portable demos to help with this, the photo shows me beginning to solder one of these together. It is a lot of work and some of the bits are pricey, but the nice thing about small portable gear is that it can be used over and over again in many situations, like school visits, so it is worth putting in time and effort to build it properly. While I was at the festival I got together with old friends … Continue reading

Posted on January 12, 2011 by andyhowells in News | Tagged | 3s Comments

What Kiran Meekings did with her prize money…

My prize winning funds were used to finance a science communication trip to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, which was held in Chicago from the 4th until the 8th of June this year. With over 50,000 doctors, pharmaceutical executives and researchers attending, it was full of exciting news about new treatments and potential pipeline candidates. I attended as many of the talks and seminars as possible in the four days and used the time to communicate my research to the scientists and researchers at the cutting edge of cancer research. I also kept a beady eye out for promising new drugs which I helped publicise when I got back to London; hopefully these drugs will help future patients with their fights against cancer.

Posted on January 10, 2011 by in News | Tagged | Comments Off on What Kiran Meekings did with her prize money…

What Sally Fenton plans to do with her prize money…

I plan to use the money to promote the PAPA project (www.projectpapa.org, www.empoweringcoaching.co.uk ) which is a large European research project beginning this September. The Project aims to educate football coaches all over Europe (the UK, Spain, Greece, France and Norway), helping to provide more positive experiences for those children who take part in youth sport football, and increase the amount of children taking part in football and youth sport in general! The project is supported by the FA and hopefully Aston Villa!! As part of my research I will be using a Mobile Health Bus. We will park this at schools and football pitches where volunteers will be able to take part in the research there and then! Our idea is that Aston Villa may be able to come along with us on these days. We will use the money to promote this so more children know about the … Continue reading

Posted on January 6, 2011 by in News | Comments Off on What Sally Fenton plans to do with her prize money…

What Katy Mee did with her prize money…

As a volcanologist working for the British Geological Survey (BGS) there isn’t much opportunity to visit and study volcanoes since, you may have noticed, we don’t have any in Britain anymore! So when it was suggested by a friend that we go on holiday this year to the Aeolian Islands, naturally I jumped at the chance. The Aeolian Islands are a group of volcanic islands off the north coast of Sicily in southern Italy, each accommodating their own volcano, some of which are still active today. Not only are they a beautiful group of islands to visit as a tourist, they are also a fascinating place to study volcanoes due to the huge variety in the styles of eruption exhibited by the various volcanoes.  Although the BGS isn’t currently working in Italy, it is still important for us to understand as much as possible about how volcanoes work and the … Continue reading

Posted on December 9, 2010 by in News | Comments Off on What Katy Mee did with her prize money…

What Panos Soultanas did with his prize money…

Panos gave his money to Olivier Rannou (a second year PhD student) in order to pay for him to go to a conference in Sheffield. Olivier has written the following about what happened: As a second year PhD student in September I attended an international conference. This event gathered scientists from around the world to speak about their discoveries in the field of DNA replication, which is the most fundamental process in biology. During the four days, scientists gave talks and at the end of each talk we could ask questions in order to better understand the work of the speaker. It was very exciting as each of them was an expert in their subject and I could learn a lot about the newest discoveries in DNA replication in general. I was able to present a poster to show my results to this audience, and met a lot of people … Continue reading

Posted on November 29, 2010 by in News | Comments Off on What Panos Soultanas did with his prize money…