Ollie D, Year 10, has written, below, about the day and the interesting talks given from Britain’s top scientists, all working at the cutting edge of their specialisms.
Joined by a vast number of different schools, we heard from a range of scientists with expertise in particular areas of biology, chemistry, and. my favourite – physics.
To begin with, however, we were told about the exam and revision techniques. Out of all of the speeches, this could be considered the most useful, as it does not matter how much knowledge of a subject you have if you do not first possess the exam techniques to apply it.
The first scientist we listened to was Doctor Anna Ploszajski, an award-winning materials scientist and writer. Dr Ploszajski spoke about her experience swimming the channel, and cleverly explained how it was influenced and how she made use of her specialist knowledge in material science. She said that sucrose, the common sugar we use today, is not ideal for long distance swimming because it provides energy in quick spikes – due to the speed in which it is broken down. In contrast, she said that the complex carbohydrate maltodextrin takes longer to be broken down; it uses more energy to be broken down, but it releases energy to the human over time, which is more appropriate for long distance swimming. She demonstrated this by lighting both on fire, and whilst the sucrose burnt in a quick flame, the maltodextrin did not change at all – proving that it takes longer to break down. This specifically links to a topic in biology and chemistry that we have learnt – the differences in complex molecules and simple molecules and the disadvantages, advantages, and interests that this brings. Dr Ploszajski also explained that, by tradition, swimming the channel is only allowed to occur in a swimsuit – no wetsuits allowed. Dr Ploszajski said “being the material nerd” she is, this led her to research into swimming costumes and the synthetic materials they are made from.
She also spoke about Jellyfish and her common encounters with them in her swim! In conclusion, Dr Anna Ploszajski’s speech was remarkably interesting and has made me keener to – despite the jellyfish – swim the channel in the future.
Next, we listened to a speech by Dr Hannah Critchlow who spoke about the human brain, a topic that is endlessly interesting. Dr Critchlow spoke about the nervous system, its connection to the brain, and demonstrated with the help of a volunteer, whom she wired up to a special machine. We were able to see the volunteer, Sophie’s, brain activity. This is something that we have not covered in class, so it was very fascinating to see the different patterns and graphs made when Sophie carried out different actions.
The following speech was my favourite. Professor Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey, where he holds a distinguished chair in the Public Engagement in Science. One of the reasons for it being my favourite may be that it covered time travel. A topic with no limits. The infinite possibilities, paradoxes and backgrounds for time travel make it such a spectacular subject to delve into and he managed to explain a mind-bogglingly confusing topic in such a straightforward way.
Professor Al-Khalili started by talking about the popular film Interstellar, and how the science that it contains is all true. He said that if we were to go and orbit a black hole, then a small amount of time there, would be the equivalent of months, years, or decades on Earth. Thus, time travel to the future is possible, although the global development needed for it well exceeds the planet’s today. To conclude, he discussed the possible reasons that there is no evidence of time travel today. To state the obvious, it may just not be possible, or there may be a way from the future that eliminates all evidence of time travel. Also, future humans may just not want to travel to 2023 (who could blame them?) But the most suspected reason is the fact that time travel may not be possible to moments in time before the time machine was invented.
After this, we heard further information about our exams, command words and habits that we should begin and stop. This was useful as we received an overview of the different words that begin the questions asked in our exam, such as “give,” “assess,” and “compare.”
Finally, there was a talk on fermentation by Professor Lord Robert Winston – a name that you may have heard of before due to his best-selling books, such as Making Babies, Getting Pregnant, and Infertility. Additionally, he has not only been on many television series, but he has written and presented many series too. These include The Human Body, Superhuman, and recently, channel 4’s Genius of Britain. Professor Lord Winston concluded the day by talking about the movement and details of eggs during fermentation and the sperms penetration of the egg. Furthermore, he spoke on the limitation of age with pregnancy and the advances in IVF. All these topics are all included at GCSE, so having the person with the most knowledge out of everyone talking to us about it was perfect.
For me the day was overwhelmingly positive. The specialist knowledge reflected by the range of professors was beyond compare, and I have learnt so much, not only about science, but future careers, exam techniques and more.