• Question: Why do you think you should win I'm a Scientist?

    Asked by charlottedavies to Pamela, Johnson, Holly, Cat, Daz on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by laurenmarie14, birdseye, danrumford, paulsutherland.
    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Charlottedavies, laurenmarie14, birdseye and danrumford,

      Well hopefully you’ll think that I’ve been doing a good job at answering your questions 😀

      I don’t want to play the poor, sick, orphan children card but if I won I know that the money will make a huge difference to the lives of a group of children in Africa!:D 😀

      Years ago, I read that if you educate a girl to secondary school/high school level in Africa that this one girl will not only be able to earn more money for herself and her family but she will also have a very positive effect on the whole health of the village she lives in. So just equipping this new school with science equipment can have really far reaching effects on a whole community!

      So if I win that £500 you know it will be really well spent!

      Hope this answers your question!

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi charlottedavies, birdseye, danrumford and laurenmarie14,

      Well, I try my best in the live chats and answering questions that are asked.. Otherwise, it’s not about me, its about how I could use that money. So, there is a scheme called Outreach which allows proper scientists to go to schools to show them experiments, and also allows classes of children to come to the university and do real experiments! It’s really cool because it gives young people – like yourselves- the opportunity to see a real lab and do real science.

      Stimulating science in young people is so so important these days, because the world needs amazing scientists in the future. There are so many questions and problems that the world faces – be it in disease, or energy, or the weather (global warming!), technologies, everything! The future needs amazing scientists, and if a scheme like Outreach can capture the imagination of even a small number of children, then it helps.

      I hope that helps.. Let me know if you have any other questions about this 🙂

      Daz

    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi charlottedavies, laurenmarie14, birdseye and danrumford,
      I have taken a little while to answer this question as I think it is very important.
      I do hope that you are enjoying the chats and the answers I have given to your questions so I hope you would vote for me partly because of these things. But as well as these things I hope to spend the money on some important stuff. If I won, the money would go to a kind of outreach programme which my institute runs. This programme allows young children (7-8 year olds mostly) to be exposed to science. I think this is a really important age to get people interested in science and show them how exciting it can be. It is really important for people to know about science and some of the brightest young minds could be directed to a career in science. Another reason the outreach programme from my institute is great is that it raises the profile of the institute, we are not that well known and it is important for the public to know what good we do and also for the budding young scientist to maybe think about coming and working here. We work to combat some of the worst animal diseases in the world. We also have programmes which bring scientist from Africa to our institute and send our scientists to Africa to teach them the science to help control the animal diseases they have. This is extremely important because as Cat said education in a village can effect the whole village and teaching them how to protect their animals means that in a world where there is not enough food they will be able to feed themselves.
      Hope this helps 🙂
      Pam

    • Photo: Johnson Soronnadi

      Johnson Soronnadi answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Guys,

      I believe I can win it, if I have answered your questions to the best of my knowledge. Apart from the impact this event brings to students who have the opportunity to be selected, so many wished to have such opportunity. I intend to use the money to buy laptop and projector for school visits and pathology weeks at schools and student visiting the hospital. Student are motivated when they are able to see how we scientist perform most of the test in the lab and give them opportunity to do some practice. It is not all about winning the event but the impact the money will create among students who motivation would’ve been boosted with hands-on practical and clips of interesting experiments we carry out in the lab.
      This will give student something to be excited about and will want to learn why something happens the way they are predicted. Using various film and practical clips from the laboratory student will be opportune to see something interesting e.g. recorded video of organisms multiplying from human samples. If you see and understand something fully then you can be expected to teach and inspire children about it.

      Hope the answers helps. Feel free to ask more questions.

      Johnson.

    • Photo: Holly Shelton

      Holly Shelton answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Thanks for the question guys! Well I would like to win so that I can set up a website where students can ask questions all year round to scientists at my university. You all have so many good questions it seems a shame you don’t have access to a scientist to ask things to when they crop up!!

      Holly

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