Schools Science Conference
14th Schools Science Conference
University of Westminster
26 April 2017
A few members of the Outreach and Education Committee attended the 14th Schools Science conference, aimed at Years 9-11, organised by science4u, held at the University of Westminster. Two hundred children from local schools in the area were invited and visited the exhibition area throughout the day.
Rob Kesseler brought along a mixture of fresh organic material and other samples for examining on a dissection microscope. The digital screen mounted on top of the microscope projected the image for a number of students to see. The students also enjoyed using the hand held Dino-Lite microscope to examine their skin, a bee, and their eye amongst other things.
Claire Wells ran a quiz using tissue slides. Slides were projected onto a laptop screen using the kit camera, and groups of 2-5 students were asked to guess whether they were a kidney, bone, lung, pancreas, tongue or eye.
13th Schools Science Conference
University of Westminster
20 April 2016
Aimed at 13-16 year olds, the 13th annual schools science conference organised by science4u invited over 200 children from local schools to the University of Westminster.
The RMS Outreach team, including Professor Rob Kesseler, Dr Claire Wells and Dr Owen Green, demonstrated a dissection microscope and presented two quizzes, one on different tissue samples and one on careers in microscopy.
The dissection microscope was incredibly popular with the students and thanks to the monitor mounted on top of the microscope, students were able to see a range of fresh organic matter from across the room. The aphid moving on a leaf was a popular sample! Most students hadn’t realised you could look at whole insects and other materials through a microscope. Students were really engaged and spent a lot of time interacting with the team, asking questions and using the equipment.
In the tissue quiz, three different slides were shown and students had to guess whether they were of a kidney, bone, lung, pancreas, tongue or eye. Depending on their knowledge the team were able to guide students who were unsure to work out the correct answer themselves.
Although we handed out lots of freebies, the students were much more interested in the microscopes on our stand and engaging with the different activities we had organised. The careers based quiz highlighted to students the range of roles that use microscopy. It also meant that they could talk to those already working in the field to get a real insight of their day to day lives and how they got into their current position.
