Launching Lab_13 BioCity
We're thrilled to announce a new partnership with BioCity, the UK's largest bioscience innovation and incubation centre, based right here in Nottingham.
We're going to be developing Lab_13 BioCity, a programme working with primary schools across Nottingham, where pupils will have the opportunity to spend a day in one of the BioCity labs, working with scientists to investigate burning questions that they've chosen themselves. This is an adaptation of our Lab_13 model, which started in 2009 and has since spread across three Nottingham schools, one in Northamptonshire, one in London, three in Ghana and one in Finland.
We ran the first Lab_13 BioCity in May, and began by inviting pupils from Henry Whipple Primary School to put forward questions for investigation a few weeks in advance of their trip at BioCity. They came up with 'What's the biggest fossil found?', 'Why does our breath smell in the morning?', 'Can medicines come from plants?' and 'What if we had no air?'. We worked with our Scientist in Residence for the day, Dr Janine Swarbrick from HGF, an intellectual property firm based in BioCity, to put together a series of activities that stemmed from the pupils' questions. These included looking at fossils lent to us by Wollaton Hall, investigating the claims made by herbal teas and building an experiment testing germs on their bodies.
We've got a date lined up with Rufford Primary in June but we're looking for schools who are interested in the July, September, October and November slots. We can be flexible about dates, and the only thing the pupils need to come armed with is plenty of curiosity and an appetite for investigation. If your school is interested, get in touch with Megan Shore (megan@ignitefutures.org.uk).
Lab_13 BioCity is only one project in our partnership with BioCity - we'll also be running a girls-only event for secondary pupils in October to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day, and delivering science communication and public engagement training for scientists based at BioCity companies.