European Science Symposium 2011
By Hilary Forrest
What does this mean? A coming together of about 160 participants from the different European schools. A shared interest in science and a desire to question, experiment and learn. The culmination of a lot of hard work on individual or small group projects. An air of excitement and expectation. A journey carrying a poster explaining the ideas and experiments each group has done. A chance to be inspired to meet friends old and new, a sense of adventure, a great opportunity.
This year we met in Brussels and our hosts were the community of Brussels II. The symposium took place over 4 days and left us little time to stop or even sleep. 11 students travelled from Culham with 8 projects. Have you ever wondered about how fast time passes, what the differences are between the many varieties of light bulbs, how mould grows and how is this affected by preservatives, why a gecko does not fall off as it sticks to a surface? These were some of the things our students had asked along with questions on the impact of music on plants and humans, how to construct a spectrometer, what are the differences between adhesives and using heat pipes to boost the performance of a low temperature difference heat engine.
Over the middle two days the fifty or so projects were judged by a jury of well respected and experienced scientists from a cross section of the scientific community. The juniors (years 1-4) which Culham was part of spent an afternoon presenting their posters, answering questions, discussing their ideas, enthusing us all with what they had done and inspiring many to go away and do more. Maybe even more impressive were some of the senior projects but these students had watched and learned on previous occasions so certainly had the advantage of experience. They too presented their posters and were questioned by the jury and the other participants.
The final group were selected beforehand to do an oral presentation which we enjoyed over 3 stimulating sessions. We were for all of this in a very grand conference room at Eurocontrol –the centre controlling the skys over Europe ‘building a single European sky’. Participants sat in a large circular room, each with their own video screen and a microphone allowing everyone to ask questions or put their points across. This alone was quite an experience and made the security checks at the entrance worthwhile. Posters were displayed in an area just outside this room.
During the official opening and closing ceremonies we heard from various people including two talks from members of the Royal Society of Chemistry in celebration of the ‘Year of Chemistry’. We also had musical entertainment provided on the first evening by members of the Brussels school.
It was not all work – we had a short walking tour of the city centre and many did some essential shopping for chocolate and waffles before our trip to the bowling alley. We also fitted in a disco after trips which included the European Parliament and Natural History Museum. We stayed and breakfasted at the Youth Hostel although we were not there long as it was late to bed with an early start each day.
The final morning everyone was keen to know who had won. No-one was in any doubt that the standards were high and everyone received a well deserved medal for all their hard work. Culham has had success before – Marius Weber in Luxembourg last year won 1stprize in the junior section with his project looking at the water quality of the rivers Stert and Ock in Abingdon – quite an achievement. What would this year bring?
Culham can celebrate the success of all but Arthur Arnould gained a 3rdprize for his light bulb project, along with two second prizes one for Jona Boender and Julian Delamillieure and their heat engine plus Jasper Sattenau and Maximillian Kretschmar for their study of mould. Certainly for one school something to be proud of.
Would we go again? Yes – given the chance I think we would all love to go again. We would really encourage others to have a go – the whole experience was very inspiring just to be part of it all. Science is definitely fun!
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