Babraham Institute Schools’ Day 2018

On Wednesday 7 March 10 Lower Sixth students visited the Babraham Institute Annual Schools’ Day. The event happens every March and offers Year 10, Year 11 and Sixth Form students the opportunity to meet scientists, take part in projects in laboratories and learn more about careers in STEM disciplines. Working alongside the institute’s researchers in the laboratories gives students a chance to experience what life is like working in this environment. Our teachers also benefitted from the experience as they were invited to attend presentations led by leading scientists.

The students all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and mastered new skills such as gel electrophoresis, a method of separating and analysing macromolecules, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a laboratory technique used to make multiple copies of DNA. The students who took part in the DNA project discovered a great deal about the machinery involved in the PCR process. The group also revelled at the fantastic opportunity to listen to two career talks led by PhD students currently based at Babraham Institute.

A number of the projects covered topics that the girls will go on to learn in the Upper Sixth, so the day was a useful insight for what is to come later in their studies, and possibly in their future careers.