Tomorrow's
minds
Outreach at Imperial is 50. Five decades of inspiring young minds and creating big futures.
A smart sleep mask for people with insomnia. LED lamps powered by gravity. Glasses for people with hyper-sensory issues. These are the fantastical inventions of the future, made by the inventors of the future, energised teenagers spending their summer on the Maker Challenge – one of many Outreach programmes run at Imperial. Here, they have access to cutting edge equipment at the Dangoor Reach Out Makerspace on Imperial’s White City campus where they can bring their ideas to life.
“These activities really help to inspire the youngsters, and you see them learn and grow in confidence,” says Evo Tongomo (Geology 2024), who supports Outreach programmes as a Student Ambassador. “At the end of the sessions, their teachers say they are completely different to what they are like at school.”
The Maker Challenge ignites a fascination with STEM, which has been the purpose of Imperial’s school engagement since its origins in 1975 as the Pimlico Connection, a project that saw Imperial students mentoring children at local schools. Over five decades, this has blossomed into a huge portfolio of programmes that includes summer schools, tutoring programmes, homework clubs and science competitions, delivered with the help of Student Ambassadors such as Tongomo and designed to raise the profile of science while supporting students from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds. This 50-year milestone is being celebrated this year through a series of interviews with alumni and current students who have been part of the programmes.
The Pimlico Connection is the programme that started it all, but the Outreach team’s dedicated spaces have been key to the flourishing programmes on offer today. This includes the Makerspace in White City, partly funded by alumni donations, as well as the Wohl Reach Out Lab in South Kensington, which opened in 2010. Around 4,000 schoolchildren use the Reach Out Laboratory each year, but the lab itself might never have existed without the lobbying power of Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies.
As part of the Outreach work, Lord Winston visits schools throughout England and Wales – in busy years he has talked to more than 50,000 children face to face (he believes this has much more impact than online teaching). This is a service that Imperial provides for free to any school interested.
JAVERIA SAEED
Age: 17
Attends: STEM Potential programme
What's going on: Exploring things like titration, using this conical flask with the pink liquid, is just one of the great experiments that were so much fun at the chemistry workshops during STEM Potential. I learnt a lot as I extended my love of chemistry, and it helped me decide that I wanted to apply to study chemistry at university.
Though things are improving, some UK schools do not have adequate, safe laboratories where children can do messy experiments which are so much fun. Winston remembers one lesson “with a boring old master gabbling for ten minutes,” he says. “Then suddenly a monumental explosion filled the room with smoke. He had set it up before the lesson. Things like that made me want to be a scientist.” This is why Winston founded the Reach Out Lab at Imperial, welcoming children of all ages to do exciting experiments supervised by excellent role models: young university students and staff.
The Reach Out Lab allows school pupils to access Imperial facilities and take part in practical experiments. It engages them at a young age, opening their eyes to the possibilities of STEM, universities and Imperial in particular.
“The role model aspect is very important,” explains Dr Melanie Bottrill (MSci Chemistry 2004; PhD 2009), Head of Outreach Programmes. “It gives the children someone they can more easily relate to. And because we have been tracking outcomes, we know we have ambassadors who first engaged with Imperial when they attended summer schools as schoolchildren themselves.”
Take Dr Jad Marrouche (Physics 2007; PhD Experimental Particle Physics 2010). He first encountered Imperial while studying A-level physics at Holland Park School. An Imperial undergraduate began visiting the school as part of the Pimlico Connection, and persuaded the school to enter a physics competition run by the Institute of Physics. Marrouche’s eyes were opened, and he and his friends decided to participate in Imperial’s summer school.
“That was our first real insight into life beyond school and it galvanised us,” he says. “It was this whole other world we had never known about before.”
Marrouche would go on to work at CERN, but while at Imperial, he volunteered as a Student Ambassador with the Pimlico Connection. “As a mentor, I had to inspire GCSE students and explain simple physics concepts through analogies they would understand,” he says. “It was tough, but I felt I could connect with them because I had been in their shoes. I wouldn’t have traditionally gone to university but the Pimlico Connection changed that, and I wanted to show them what was possible while teaching them about science.”
ALISHA DESHONG-WILLIAMS
Age: 17
Attends: STEM Potential programme
What's going on: The programme was the first chance I got to use equipment like this oscilloscope – which displays waves and electrical signals and how they progress and change over time – on my own. I find it all really fascinating, but perhaps my favourites are the physics practicals, especially things like creating a cloud chamber.
Another student ambassador who found outreach to be a life-changing experience is Dr Claire Doyle (Chemistry 2007; PhD Organic Synthesis 2011), who became a secondary school teacher – partly because outreach made her realise how much she enjoyed standing in front of a classroom.
Her outreach career began when she visited primary schools through the Pimlico Connection. She began working at the summer schools as a chemistry mentor and, after completing a PhD, started working full time in outreach as an activities coordinator, gaining more of an insight into the students who are invited to take part from the thousands that apply.
“We looked at students from certain areas and backgrounds, below a certain income and with no family experience of university,” she says. “We met students with great ambitions and a natural aptitude for science, but who didn’t always know what to do with it. Even over the course of a five-day summer school you’d see them transform. By the end, they had developed real confidence and pride in what they were doing.”
Today, Doyle uses some of the experiments and techniques she developed in outreach at her secondary school. She also notes the importance of practical work in inspiring students, something that was the founding principle behind the establishment of the Reach Out Lab, and then the Makerspace, which opened in 2017.
As well as two summer programmes, both for 20 students and lasting a fortnight, the Makerspace holds weekly sessions during term time. In every case, students aged 14 to 18 take part in the Maker Challenge, charged with using the materials and equipment in the workshop to make a prototype or model of a project. Successful inventions include a ukulele for the deaf, trainers with speakers embedded in the tongue and a working robot. Graduates of the programme are then entitled to come back and use the Makerspace on Saturdays until they are 19.
Kate Mulcahy, Makerspace Programmes Manager, explains that it was developed as a place for students to combine engineering with design and creativity. “The Makerspace enables young people from all backgrounds in the local community to nurture talent they might not have otherwise known they had,” she says. “It offers students an insight into the power of design and engineering.
AMAURY DE REUVER
Age: 15
Attends: Makerspace
What's going on: Made from colourful acrylic and decorated with LED lights, this Carbon Catcher is a prototype of a drone that's designed to fly over highly polluted areas to filter out carbon dioxide emissions. Amaury says he's more self-confident with peers thanks to connecting with like-minded people at Proto Maker and Maker Challenge events.
“The goal isn’t to get more students to apply to Imperial, it’s to unlock potential in young people that might go beyond the traditional academic route. Science, innovation and imagination are intrinsically linked, and the Makerspace allows the next generation in the White City community to be part of the innovative environment being forged on their doorstep.”
The Makerspace team have started to take their skills and equipment to local schools, while the team introduced careers support to give students help with CVs, work experience and apprenticeship applications. While the intention of the programme is not to support them into Imperial, the team is seeing an increasing number successfully apply to Imperial. Lord Winston thinks Outreach at Imperial does more than just broaden a school student’s scientific knowledge.
“We provide awareness of the importance of science in today’s world, making a big difference to people’s lives,” he says. “We recognise that scientific endeavour is part of human values and advances humanity.
“We do more than simply teach science; we show how it improves human health and happiness and connects with the arts and other disciplines. What Outreach and the Reach Out lab do is inspirational. These activities not only help young people to communicate their science and its importance, but increase their ambition and aspirations.”
Imperial is celebrating 50 years of providing innovative schools outreach programmes with a special Outreach at 50 series. Discover the stories of other inspiring people who have been impacted by our work.
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