In our experience, the longer it takes for a scientist or engineer to reach a school, the less likely those students are to have visits. We’ve done some research that suggests schools more than 30 minutes travel time are less likely to receive visits.

We also think looking at Widening Participation schools is useful to understand the variety of schools we have wanting to take part.

A school that met both our under-served and widening participation definitions took part in the Organs Zone, March 2017.

Based in one of the most rural counties in England, 23.5% of students are eligible for free school meals, and the driving time to the local HEI is over an hour. They have participated in I’m a Scientist once before.

Event participation

Two classes took part in March 2017; one year 10 and one year 11. Both classes were in the Organs Zone, a themed zone funded by Wellcome.

Schools data

62 students were active in the event, using ASK, CHAT or VOTE at least once. On average students asked 14 lines of live chat, with one student accounting for 75 lines. 54 questions were approved through ASK.

Live chats

Keywords from the two live chats. Size of the word represents its popularity.

ASK questions

Students can ask anything that want. Looking at the types of question asked is a great way to see what students were interested in talking to the scientists about. How science works, which includes the process, motivations and ethics behind science was the most popular topic of questions. We’ve looked at the percentage of questions in each category, and compared the specific school with a wider range of questions asked in the events. 

Questions asked by the students include:
What’s the fanciest piece of kit you’ve used?
What do you think you will be able to do with your research?
Is it possible in the future to two people to have the same DNA and they would think speak and look the same
How do you think the cells are connected? Is it not just electrical signals between?
what made you want to take biology into the real world and go into more depth into the human body
Have you discovered any groundbreaking results?
if you can change 3 thing about the world what would they be

What counts as a WP schools?
As there is no set definition of what makes a school a widening participation school, we use the following.

A school will be classed as WP if:

• an above average number of students are eligible for free school meals. Currently schools with more than 14% free school meals. (England, Wales and NI)
• more than 20% of its pupils live in the 20% most deprived datazones (Scotland)