PowToon is great

I created my 1st first PowToon video and it was fun to make. Totally recommend it. Enjoy!!!

A Big Biology Day at the Sandford Mill Museum.

This year’s biology week kicked off with a series of activities taking place across the country and for the first time, “A big Biology Day” came to Essex.  Big Biology Day is a one day science fair that celebrates the life sciences with hands on activities, crafts and displays bringing together a number of biological organisations and individuals under one roof for all the family to enjoy. The initiative was launched by the East Anglia branch of the Society of Biology in 2012 during the first ever Biology week and has seen an exponential growth over the years with other regions embracing “A Big Biology Day”.

The Essex fair was organised by myself, in collaboration with Chemlsford city council at the Sandford Mill museum.

Dr Geoff Bowles, curator of science at the Sandford Mill Museum welcomed the initiative saying, activities at the museum have been predominantly focussed on the physical sciences and it’s great to incorporate a life science activity in the calendar.

Education officer at the museum Rebecca Fitzgerald also commended the fair for coming to Essex at a time where the primary school science curriculum is focussed more on the natural sciences as a great way to engage pupils and their families.  

Activities on the day included the hunger games from the physiological society, the Plant/product matching quiz from the Cambridge biology day team and dissecting owl pellets by Jonathan Forgham.

Although there is a strong engineering prescence in Chelmsford, there is a natural science activity gap within Essex and Hephzi found the need to introduce the Big Biology Day fair to the region to bridge this gap.

Join us next year for another Big Biology Day. Save the date. 2nd August 2015. 

New Beginings

To all my silent readers wondering where I've been hiding since the last post in August, first of all my apologies for the silence. 

I've recently started a PhD at the UCL Institute of Child Health and as all new beginnings go, I've been busy settling into the academic life. It's been an interesting transition after working in industry for so long but an exciting change all the same.  I look forward to sharing some of my erratic stories with you over the next 3 years or so. 

But that's not all. I've slightly shifted focus back to my first love, Ghana!. I've partnered with Dr Tom Tagoe to launch GhScientific and as a result most of my scientific content will be posted on the GhScientific site. 

I still remain a public engagement enthusiast and love seeing the excitement and smiles on the faces of all those school pupils as I intrigue them with the wonders of science and promote STEM careers. 

The focus of this blog will now be shifted slightly to public engagement, events and of-course my PhD journey. 

Finally, the latest Big Biology Day (@BBD_Essex) event I organised at the Sandford Mill Museum in Chelmsford as part of Biology week celebrations was great with lots of lessons learnt. This will now be a yearly event so stay tuned for the blog post.  

My next STEM Ambassadorial event will be at the Appleton school in Essex, next month. I'll be at the ExploreSTEM stand advising on scientific careers.  

Thank you all for the support over the years. I'm always open to feedback so feel free to speak up and if you're looking for a derailed scientist to act out a scene from the big bang theory then do get in touch!.