Our girls win top prizes in science journalism competition

08 Jul 2016

Three Sixth Form pupils, Tilly, Hayley and Bronwyn have scooped top prizes in the British Science Association “Science journalism” competition for Sixth Form students.

The competition gave students the opportunity to research a topic of their choice, interview an active researcher working in their chosen field and create a 500 word article explaining this work to a lay-audience. Tilly, Hayley and Bronwyn took up the challenge and after submitting an initial profile of the areas of science they were interested in each student was matched to a researcher from Manchester University.

Tilly teamed up with Dr Graham Hall who studies how materials change during a nuclear reaction, specialising in graphite as a reactor material in both UK and next generation reactors. Tilly’s article, titled “the case of the jumping carbons” allowed the reader to get a very clever insight into Graham’s work and won her first prize in the competition.

Hayley was paired with Professor Dean Jackson who studies how nuclear structure and organisation influences gene expression in mammalian cells. Hayley’s won second prize.

Bronwyn joined Mr Dan Elijah who simulates neurons using computer models and analyses how their basic mathematical properties influences the way in which they represent stimuli. Although Bronwyn didn’t win one of the top prizes, her article was placed in the top ten.