Marine

The Skye’s the limit

May 10, 2016 by Marine Scotland Communications No Comments | Category Marine Directorate general, Marine Directorate Science

At the Nuffield celebration event in Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh, Skye was awarded a Crest Gold award for her project “Can we predict jellyfish blooms?” and she was invited to take part in the Big Bang Science event in Birmingham in March this year.

In John’s own words:

“The Big Bang Science Fair is an enormous event , and possibly the only way I can describe it is like the biennial oil exhibition in Aberdeen – except for science. It is made all the more busy by having literally thousands of school pupils, brought in by bus, train, and plane from every part of the UK.

The 2,000 or so invited contestants are allotted a small stand space which are in different zones, so that engineering is in one zone, and biology in another, etc. This makes it slightly easier for the judges to find the contestants and also to be able to judge more fairly and evenly across the board.

Skye explaining her project to pupils

What was of surprise to me , was the interest shown by lots of school pupils in Skye’s stand and the project. She dealt with class after class, very patiently and seemed able to engage effortlessly with pupils of all ages and their teachers.

On the second day there was a great buzz of excitement round the massive hall, as a series of high profile visitors came and went, including Duke of York, David Cameron and others.

Skye was visited by the One Show scientist, Marty Jopson, who bounded on to her stand and without introduction proceeded to tell her he knew Stonehaven and had seen large numbers of moon jellyfish in the harbour there. He was, however, genuinely interested in the science and complimented her on her excellent clearly laid out easy to understand poster.

Shortly after there was another buzz of excitement when a group of officials came to the stand to tell Skye that she had not only been awarded a Crest gold award for her project but also a British Association for Science gold award – one of only four awarded at the event.

All in all Skye did very well indeed and was a real credit to herself, her parents, her school, and Marine Scotland Science, and even though she admitted to feeling terrified at points, she says the whole experience has been a very positive one for her.”

Well done, Skye!

Written with thanks to John Dunn, Dr Kathryn Cook and Jens Rasmussen.

Further Information

• Marine Scotland Science
• Read the previous blog about Skye
• Nuffield Science Bursary

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