Bob Forsyth is a Reader in Space Physics at Imperial College London. His research focuses on how the Sun influences the Earth’s environment through the solar wind, a field known as Space Weather. He currently acts as the Admissions Tutor for the Physics Department.
Bob was invited to attend the STEM careers event at Oxted School. Over 20 scientists, admissions tutors and ambassadors of science attended the event which was aimed at Year 9 students. Some sixth form students also attended the event.
Students were put in to small groups and had chance to speak to around 10 ambassadors to try to guess their job title. Ambassadors were asked to take props with them to help the students guess the sort of work they do. Bob’s props included a Cubesat frame, a miniature magnetometer and a movie running on his laptop showing the dynamic solar atmosphere, and many students correctly guessed that he was a space physicist.
Students were marked for how accurately they had guessed the ambassadors job titles and a winning team was announced. The eventual winning group correctly asked Bob if he worked on the solar wind and coronal mass ejections.
Following the competition, the visitors were invited to give a brief presentation about their work and what they most enjoyed about their job. Students had the chance to go back to speak to the ambassadors to ask them more about their work.
The students thoroughly enjoyed the event and one parent said: “I just wanted to let you know that my daughter came back full of praise for Friday’s event”.