On Friday 14th February Catalyst Science Discovery Centre in Widnes, Cheshire, welcomed Professor David Phillips CBE FRSC and invited guests to the launch of a brand new education project called Outbreak!
Outbreak has been designed to promote team building skills in a chemistry context and teams of pupils work in harmony to discover what the Outbreak actually is and how they can prevent it.
Meryl Jameson, Marketing Officer at Catalyst said “In 2012 Catalyst worked with two special interest groups from the Royal Society of Chemistry on a project that won £10,000 from the RSC IYC Challenge Fund. Outbreak has subsequently been developed with that prize money in collaboration with the Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group and the Historical Group from the RSC.
Twenty eight pupils from Victoria Road Primary School in Runcorn visited Catalyst in December to help trial the project and we were eager to invite the same pupils to return on Friday and demonstrate what they’d learnt to guests at the official launch.”
Professor David Phillips, Immediate Past President of the Royal Society of Chemistry said it was a personal pleasure to finally visit Catalyst and launch Outbreak as he was President of the Royal Society of Chemistry when the IYC Challenge was initiated.
Following demonstrations of the experiments by the pupils, Professor Phillips said “Today, you’ve seen for yourselves what young children can do. We need to release their energy and enthusiasm and channel it to encourage them to become professional scientists and young adults that understand scientific principles. Pupils should be enthused with STEM Subjects (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) at Primary level and these pupils are a perfect example.
We need to enhance the status of the teaching profession in the UK and we need resources to do this. Catalyst is an excellent resource and Education Manager Phill Day is a real inspiration.
I want to congratulate everyone involved in the Outbreak project, and look forward to seeing this as an example that can be used right across the country”.
Dr Robert Parker CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry commented “I would like to add my congratulations to Catalyst and all involved in this project including the RSC Local Sections and RSC Special Interest Groups that support Catalyst. Outbreak has been an inspirational project, a worthy winner of the £10,000 prize money and it is great that you have forged links with Professor David Evans from the Beijing section who also won one of the £10,000 prizes.
I am happy to announce that the Royal Society of Chemistry is very happy to be supporting Catalyst Education Manager, Phill Day as a RSC Teacher Fellow for another year and I wish you a lot of luck with the continuation of this project”.
It is planned that the “Outbreak!” package will be widely distributed to schools and science centres across the UK.
You can find out more about Catalyst by visiting the website at www.catalyst.org.uk
