Excellence East Summer School 2008 at UEA

During the summer holidays, Excellence East ran a summer school at the University of East Anglia for Gifted and Talented young people from across the Eastern Region. The summer school was entitled “Science and Society” and students aged 12 to 14 travelled from Norfolk, Suffolk and as far as Southend-On-Sea to attend. Places on the summer school were extremely competitive as Excellence East received 2 applications for every available place. However, 40 students were selected and they enjoyed a week of science and society-based activities. The intention of the week was to give the students an insight into science at university and to study topics that they do not get the opportunity to study whilst at school. The students spent the week working towards creating an informational poster for young people of their own age on the importance of science within society.

Dr Bruce Lankford, Head of Development Studies at UEA, began the week with an inspiring and interactive workshop based on his River Basin Game. The students learnt about the complexities of ensuring that all farms within a community in Tanzania have access to water. The week continued with a Biology day in the hi-tech George Duncan Teaching Laboratory called “Crime Scene Investigation UEA”, run by Dr Colwyn Thomas. The day was packed with new and exciting activities for the students, as they investigated forensic science techniques and used university equipment to look at their own DNA. One student stated, “I have learnt a lot about DNA from the Biology day, which I really enjoyed. I would like to be a forensic scientist when I’m older [and] it really increased my interest”.

On Wednesday, the UEA summer school students took a trip to the University of Cambridge and spent the day calculating their own Carbon Footprint. Whilst they were enjoying their field trip, UEA played host to 50 Cambridge summer school students.

On their return to the UEA, they took part in a robotics workshop led by Dr Stephen Laycock. They learnt about the use of robots in society and were given the opportunity to programme their own robots and experience the results. The week continued as Dr Jill Austin led the students in a debate about whether or not we should colonise space. She also gave the students the opportunity to design their own space station. The final workshop of the week took place in the Pharmacy Dispensary at the UEA, as Dr Debi Bhattacharya ran a fascinating session on health economics, a principle that many had never explored.

Throughout the week, the students worked in groups on their posters, supported by UEA Student Ambassadors. On Friday afternoon 60 parents, guardians, grandparents and siblings came to see the final student presentations. The posters and presentations that the students produced were extremely impressive and reflected all of their hard work and commitment. A judging panel chose a winning group and presented them with a prize. Finally, each student received a certificate celebrating their involvement and completion of the Excellence East summer school.

It was a truly rewarding week for everyone involved. The students met lots of new friends that they intend to remain in touch with and many hope to return to the UEA for future Excellence East events.