Biology, Physics and Chemistry in Action!

On Monday 29th, Tuesday 30th November and Tuesday 7th December, our pupils from the 5th and Sixth Form took part in a series of Biology, Physics and Chemistry in Action virtual lectures. Over the duration, pupils had the opportunity to listen to an external speaker provide real life examples of the science they learn in school and be able to apply academic theory to real life practice.

Chemistry

The day started with a welcome from Steve Cross, Chair of TTP. Pupils learnt about the following range of topics delivered by scientists such as:

• Steve Cross: Lateral flow testing, and how they work and how they can be used to fight not only Covid-19 but also health inequalities?
• Asel Sartbaeva: Vaccines, and the importance of keeping them refrigerated at all times.
• David Smith: The Chemistry of Drugs,  exploring how ‘bad’ drugs (e.g. crystal meth) and ‘good’ drugs (e.g. anti-viral drugs), work, and the main chemical differences.
• Peter Hoare: Exam Success, insights into how to succeed in scientific educational exams.
• Jamie Gallagher: Nanoinvasion,  tiny tech that is changing our phones, food, sport and health.
• Andrea Sella: Strange Ice, understanding how it scientifically forms, and potential environmental warnings large areas of ice may provide.

Biology

The pupils attended ground-breaking sessions on the reversal of the ageing process, contribution of genes to disease risk, smell and how smell loss can be an indication of disease, to name a few. Pupils learnt about the following range of topics delivered by scientists such as:

• Darren Logan, exploration of how our smell works, and why each person experiences smells differently. How we as humans can smell over 161 octatrigintillion different odours, but yet each individual will have a different experience.
• Dr Chris Wilmott, the advantages and disadvantages about genetic testing. There are many positives, but there are also negatives and genealogical surprises such as adoption, gamete donation and surrogacy.
• Dr Helen Sclaes, we looked at how, even in the deepest, darkest, coldest places of the ocean, life still exists , and how this life is impacted by the larger world around it, and what we need to do to keep it alive and healthy.
• Dr Andrew Steele, who explored ageing, and how the longer we live, the more our body ages. He talked about how we as humans think ageing is a natural process, and learnt that as medicine has gotten better and more professional, the average human life expectancy has increased to an average of about 72.6 years, compared to 40 years many decades ago.
• Greg Foot,  explained his adventures of climbing up Mount Everest to the base camp pop-up laboratory, and the risks he encountered along the way but an insight into the life changing experience.

Feedback from pupils:

“I definitely enjoyed the day so much. There was not a second where I was bored. maybe that’s just because of my love of biology, but everything that was presented was so interesting and gripping. It made me think outside the box, and made me expand my brain to thinking about real world problems, and the uses for biology in these. I absolutely loved the marine biology talk – it was by far my favourite. And seeing as I am wanting to study marine biology at university after school, it left me in complete awe and excitement for what might come.”