Ten Lower Sixth Formers enjoyed a day of learning about different scientific research projects, when they attended the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) Conference. The conference, aimed at young researchers aged between 14 to 18, provides an ideal opportunity for keen young scientists to share their research projects with their peers from other schools and the wider academic community.
Upon arriving at the conference, the group of boys, some of whom are studying A-Level and some IB, were able to look at the other students’ work, which were all presented in the form of posters. Our group’s poster detailed research they carried out on the Cosmic Mining Project: analysing Spitzer telescope data to find interesting astronomical targets for the newly launched James Webb Telescope.
Each group then took it in turns to present their posters and research findings to the rest of the delegates, with each group receiving an appropriate grilling from the audience and valuable advice from professional scientists.
All in all, it was an inspiring day where the students were able to strengthen their self-confidence, build communication skills and foster collaboration with like-minded individuals.
Dylan Morgan-Jones and Tai Tsang-Goodwin have shared their experience of the day:
“Our experience at the IRIS conference this year is one that will stay with us forever and gave us a great insight into what the life of a scientist is like. The day started with an uneventful journey to UCL. However, the rain less than fun to walk through. We arrived at the conference at about 10am, spending the next hour walking around the floor of the conference looking at the posters that other groups had made, and seeing our own posters up on the boards. We were quite proud of how our posters turned out whilst also taking a great interest in the posters of other groups. One poster that really stood out to us was a project that researched the atmosphere, looking for micro-plastics and looking at radiation coming through the atmosphere by sending a weather balloon into the sky and taking recordings using the equipment on the balloon.
At 11am we took our seats to listen to the keynote speaker, Professor Tom Welton (the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry) who worked with ionic liquids during his career as a chemist. He spoke to us about the journey he took to becoming a chemist, a story which really inspired us. Professor Welton did not know that he wanted to pursue Chemistry until his Al-Levels, which showed us that there is no set time to decide on what you want to do with your life. He also spoke to us about how he did not get it into his first choice of university and that he doesn’t regret it whatsoever. If he went to his first-choice university, he wouldn’t have had the chance to be at the University of Sussex, during a time of exciting discovery. We are very thankful to have had the chance to listen to the professor. Following this talk we went for a quick lunch break.
After lunch, schools continued to present ideas individually to the audience. The schools ranged from ages 14 to 18, and presented on a variety of topics, such as studying carbon emissions around their school, reducing the painfulness of kidney stones, increasing the accuracy of robotic movement, etc. The conference was designed to be students own research- which was the best part about seeing all the other students work, as some had some incredible (and some very lateral!) ideas.
After the presentations, the groups who hadn’t presented posters in the first half presented to the groups who had. As we walked around, we were really stunned by the time frame over which the students had been working on their projects- some of which had been going on for years. Many involved mechanical rather than electrical solutions to problems, which was interesting to see. We spoke for a while to a group working on implementing lotus leaves design into fabric or tarps, as they noticed the lotus leaf’s ability to be submerged for its entire life. Another interesting project was one which detected how much UV light the earth’s atmosphere absorbed. This was an example of a group planning to come back next year and present new findings, as they were awaiting apparatus to detect this.
We were then all called back to our seats for a final time, to have live discussions with leading researchers in the field. One of which was a leader in the pharmaceutical field, creating new drugs, and the other was involved in the engineering behind the James Webb telescope. Both told us their stories, why they went into science, and answered questions from the floor. It was great to see that there were so many jobs open to us in the future in STEM.
Our school had only been working on our project for a few months, but there is real potential for us to work on something on a larger scale next year. It was great to see so many other students dedicate huge amounts of time to scientific research, something we as a school could get into as well. It was a really great opportunity for all, and we all came away with new or better ideas than we had before.”