The results are in…

…from this months “I’m a Scientist”.  Unfortunately due to my lax posting over the past few months it’s not the one that I took part in.  This time around it was a much larger affair, with 100 scientists and 5000 students.  But what was it like…well, I’m sure it was a little more hectic than last time, but reports from my friend Duncan, who took part,  suggest it was just as enjoyable.

During my stint I found myself voted off second, but I still couldn’t keep away from the site.  It was a truly hectic but engaging experience.  The two weeks involved online MSN style chats and answering lots of posted questions from the students.  The chats were very chaotic and lasted around an hour to an hour and half.  We were bombarded by a torrent of questions from 20 or more students with usually just 3 scientists to respond.  Keeping track was a challenge, but thankfully any questions that were missed usually got posted later and we could get back to the students then.  All praise to the moderators in our section, too.  They helped us skirt around many firewall issues and managed to pacify the students who’s questions couldn’t be answered.  Without them I fear we would have all met our match.

The best things about the experience were how engaged the students were, how profound their questions were (why do we die?  Anyone?) and most importantly how much of a difference it made to their understanding of science and scientists.  There was one occasion where a group of students stayed 15 minutes after the end of school bell because they were enjoying themselves so much.  This made me think that as scientists we don’t do enough to engage school students, or educate them about the reality of science and science related jobs.  Why else would they care so much about being able to talk for an hour with us?

The ‘Science Busker’ of our group, Martin, won the competition.  It was a well deserved win based purely on how the money will be used.  His science busking takes real science to the general public.  Not all the fancy explosions, coloured liquids and CO2 gassing out of a conical flask stuff, but real science.  You can find more information on what he does here.

So lets raise a glass to Martin, and perhaps it’s worthwhile remembering that popping your head into a school classroom for an hour could really make a difference.  Maybe we should do it a little more often.

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