National Science and Engineering Week events are fun for pupils, their teachers and our Biosciences students
Children examining crabs from our coastline.National Science and Engineering Week
During National Science and Engineering Week (NSEW) events are hosted in Biosciences at both our Exeter and Tremough campuses from our selection of workshops. For further details of what’s on offer this year please visit the Universities NSEW website.
The Hands-on science event was a great success, attended by pupils from three local schools - Willand Primary School, Newtown Primary School and The Duchy School. The children had a fantastic afternoon making slime and silly putty and exploring the properties of polymers, before finding out more about crabs found on our coast. It was a noisy, but great fun afternoon in the lab for all the children and for the undergraduate and postgraduate students who helped out. All the children went away with new-found enthusiasm for science, and packets of slime for terrorising their siblings!
The Explore biosciences event was attended by pupils from Clystvale Community College in Exeter and King Edward VI in Totnes, who undertook a series of three experiments from across the discipline of Biosciences; investigating the biochemistry of green blood proteins in sea sqirts, looking at the transmission of disease and testing methods used in conservation and ecology to measure endangered populations. It was an interesting and informative day aided by a fantastic team of student demonstrators.
Biosciences - is it for me?
This event is run jointly with the Education Business Partnership at our Cornwall Campus, near Falmouth, in early March each year.
The aim of the event is to introduce students in Year 10 to the wide-ranging opportunities that exist locally in the field of biosciences, and introduces students to the routeways, both vocational and academic, into the sector. The day includes input from both higher education and industry. We run a series of interactive sessions and workshops - in 2009, these included sessions by the University of Exeter, Duchy College, Eden Project, Newquay Zoo and Key Organics. During the day, students rotate so they experience each session. The day culminates in a University Challenge-style quiz, where teams from each school battle it out, answering questions pertinent to the information they learned throughout the day. The winning team receives a shield to take back to their school.
