EI was pleased to be part of The Big Bang Fair, held in Birmingham from 13 - 16 March 2014. This is a free event open to students aged 11-18 featuring the National Science & Engineering Competition, and the finals of CREST (a project-based awards scheme for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Young Engineer for Britain.

The Big Bang Fair aims to educate and enthuse young people about opportunities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) inspiring them to follow careers in these rewarding fields. For more information on the shows and exhibitions visit The Big Bang Fair

Nurturing the Next Generation.

The Earlham Institute (EI) hosted 'Women in Bioinformatics Day', opening its doors to twelve female high school students to nurture their passion for computing and reveal career opportunities in the bioinformatics field to talented young students regardless of gender.

Keen to play its part in engaging female students in science, EI welcomed Year 9 pupils from the City Academy Norwich for its Women in Bioinformatics Day. Three female Bioinformaticians from EI: Sarah Bastkowski, Dharanya Sampath and Purnima Caim met the students to talk about their research and answer questions regarding their own personal career experiences.

The students also got a taste of the work carried out by bioinformaticians through a presentation about the software tool BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool). Researchers use BLAST to identify similarities in DNA or proteins. Next, the students were hands-on with a species classification activity, concluding the event with a tour of EI’s impressive Data Centre led by Paul Fretter, Science Computing Team Leader at NBI where they were able to see our computing capacity first-hand.

The Earlham Institute (EI) visited the Robert Kett Junior School in Wymondham to enthuse and engage students and teachers with the Institute’s innovative research. The event focused on the genome analysis of microbes, keeping in line with the school’s current biology curriculum.

The primary school visit to Robert Kett included five workshops with all the Year 6 pupils. The day of science activities began with five different ‘microbe islands’ mapped out for the pupils to visit, each one representing different types of microbes that are analysed at EI.

With their EI ‘passports’, the students travelled to each microbe island completing a variety of interactive activities, rewarded with passport stickers from EI’s specialist scientists along the way. To wrap up the day, the student who made the most progress on the day was awarded a giant E-coli toy.

As feedback, students were given the task of remembering keywords from the different microbe islands to send a text message back to EI on what they had learnt, as well as postcards to fill in to express their views on the event.

Lead teacher of the visit at Robert Kett, Trevor Child, said: “The kids had a thoroughly exciting time, they were fully engaged when learning about the good and bad features of microbes sequenced at EI. It was lovely to see such a variety of activities that were bright and colourful with lots of fascinating facts, which complemented the microbes topic that the pupils have been working on, while linking directly to the National Curriculum”.

Peter Bickerton, Lana Semykina, Ben White and Hester van Schalwyk from Earlham Institute attended the Science in Norwich Day, which took the EI schools programme programme to the Forum, running interactive activities and discussing the exciting field of genomics with the public.

Over 2000 people entered the Forum during the day to be welcomed by activities, demonstrations and shows run by various research and educational institutes. With a large science community in Norwich, the event, organised by Science Outreach in Norfolk, offered the public the opportunity to get hands-on with science activities and find out more about the innovative research happening on their doorstep.

At the EI booth, members of the public chatted with staff to find out more about the world of genomics and bioinformatics. Through a microscope they viewed, algae, uncovering the secret cellular life of the organism while a DNA phylogenetics activity challenged them to arrange both animal and plant species into the order in which they evolved.

In Norwich, over 400 school children from years 5 to 11 attended a Fascination of Plants Day hosted by the John Innes Centre. At the EI booth, students experienced hands-on activities from algae, 3D plant cells to DNA origami to engage them with the Institute’s plant science research in genomics and bioinformatics.

In a phylogenetic activity, the pupils were challenged to place a group of various plants in the order in which they evolved using the ‘EI Evolution Tree’; from the oldest species to the evolutionary newcomer. The school children were then given the genetic sequences of these plants to refine their answers in their event work books.

This is an annual event giving school students the chance to experience life as a scientist at Earlham Institute and its partner institutes on the Norwich Research Park. It builds students' knowledge, confidence, skills and aspirations. Most of all it provides an incredibly motivating and inspirational week.

Students apply individually to take part and are supported by teacher references. The week-long structured training programme is held at the end of the summer term and consists of interactive workshops, networking sessions, practical training and lab experience placements. Teachers are invited to attend the final session to see their students in action and receiving certificates.

LIYSF is a two week residential event held at Imperial College London, with lectures and demonstrations from leading scientists, visits to industrial sites, research centres, scientific institutions and organisations, including world class laboratories and universities.

LIYSF attracts over 400 of the world's leading young scientists aged 17-21 years old from more than 60 participating countries. There is an active social calendar with events designed to enable those from around the world to learn about different cultures. The scope of LIYSF extends further than broadening scientific understanding to engage students in education on other cultures and develop lasting, international friendships.

Inside Science is an annual event hosted by the John Innes Centre in association with the other members of Norwich Research Park, including EI.

This year we will host the Inside Science students for an afternoon on Wednesday 11th November. We will be giving them an introduction to EI, including a workshop on bioinformatics and phylogenetics with Paul Bailey. The students will also have the chance to see our cutting edge sequencing facilities through a lab tour delivered by Darren Heavens and Dave Baker, as well as a tour of the data centre - showing off our huge supercomputing capacity.