Creative Futures event – raising aspirations in young people

Imperial As One hosts two day school visit - News

Thursday 25 October 2007
By Naomi Weston

Two days of workshops looking at engineering in everyday objects and examining how our neurological senses work were held last week at Imperial College London.

Organised by the College’s race equality group, Imperial As One, the Creative Futures: Achieving Your Potential event aims to raise aspirations and excitement for science amongst children from inner city London schools.

The two days focused on interactive workshops introducing the pupils, aged between 10 and 16, to hands-on science. These included workshops on Neuroscience which asking the pupils, does colour influence flavour identification? Using four different flavoured soda drinks and one unflavoured, clear drink, the pupils had to record how the colour influenced their sense of taste and how mixing the substances made it harder to identify the flavours.

The aim of the activity was to teach the children how to carry out self-directed investigations and how to think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanation, said Dr Brigitte Stavrou, an Imperial alumnus and science teacher at Stockley Academy in Middlesex.

Other workshops, run by Dr Sunday Popo-Ola, Research and Teaching Fellow, from the Faculty of Engineering, who hosted the event, looked at the strength of an egg structure and how this shape can be related to a dome structure in architecture, for example, the Royal Albert Hall. The pupils also built various structures and towers using marshmellows and spaghetti to test their strength.

Dr Popo-Ola said: "This is a great activity showing the pupils how you can translate everyday objects into engineering terms. It is all about encouraging young people to think and be innovative."

The school children had the opportunity to meet a range of role models to encourage them to return to Imperial and other universities for further study. Special guests included the Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, the Mayor of Haringey, Councillor Sheik Thompson, Professor Chris Hankin, Deputy Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, and Dr Chris Towler, Director of Project Management, who welcomed the teachers and pupils.

Christine Yates, Imperial’s Equalities Consultant, added: "This is the second year we have run the Creative Futures event. Next year, building on its success, we are planning to extend it to five days, allowing more schools and children to participate. Academics from a range of disciplines will be asked to organise different experiments, making the event an integral part of our widening participation and outreach programmes."

She added: "It is very inspiring seeing how much the teachers care about their pupils, and the efforts they make to give their pupils every opportunity to fulfil their potential. It makes me very proud to work at Imperial alongside such excellent champions of race equality."

To watch a video of last week's Creative Futures event please see Creative Futures video