School children and students enter science essay writing competition - <em>News</em>
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Thursday 24 January 2008
By Naomi Weston
The Royal College of Science Union at Imperial College London launched its annual Science Challenge on Tuesday evening, promising to be the biggest most interactive challenge yet.
Launched in 2006, the Science Challenge is an annual essay competition, open to school children and students at Imperial, which aims to promote science communication and creative thinking amongst young people.
Over 115 schools from around the UK are involved and will join students in answering a choice of five essay questions on a range of subjects including climate change, energy, genetics, and the future of technology.
For the first time this year, the organisers of the challenge have made it more interactive with a series of seminars every week for students and school pupils to follow live on the internet.
Eighty school children viewed the first launch lecture, given by Rector of Imperial College, Sir Richard Sykes, live via an online stream on Tuesday.
The panel of judges, who include Rector of the College, Sir Richard Sykes, Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society at Imperial, Dr Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial, and Dr Paul Snaith, Vice President of Shell Global Solutions, have thought up the essay questions and each will deliver a seminar on their chosen topic.
The essay questions are:
- Should healthy people take drugs to enhance their cognitive abilities? Dr Phillip Campbell
- To what extent is geoengineering the solution to the climate change problem? Sir Brian Hoskins
- Satisfying the world's spiralling energy demands whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions presents today's scientists with a seemingly impossible task. Discuss. Dr Paul Snaith
- How would knowledge of my genetic makeup affect my lifestyle? Sir Richard Sykes
- Ever since early humans invented the handaxe, technology has increased the potential to destroy mankind. Are we sowing the seeds of our own destruction? Professor Lord Robert Winston
These seminars will be open to Imperial students, and will be both streamed live for the web every Tuesday at 6.30pm for the next four weeks and available as podcasts. To view the seminars live or listen again to the podcast, visit the Science Challenge 2008 website: www.rcsu.org.uk/sciencechallenge/
Chairman of the Science Challenge Daniel Burrows said: “This year we asked our final judging panel to each choose a question. No curriculum requirements, no guidelines, just what they would like the students of today to be considering. The carte blanche approach has produced a diverse set of questions spanning all the disciplines at Imperial College.”
The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 26 February 2008. The Imperial Competition is open to all registered undergraduates and postgraduates at Imperial College across all campuses. The Schools competition is open to all students in Years 11 to 13. Each school must register to participate. Please see www.rcsu.org.uk/sciencechallenge/ schools.php
This year’s prizes are a cheque for £2,500 for the Imperial winner and £2,000 for the school entry.
For more information email science.challenge@imperial.ac.uk
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