Science Discovered! 2014 – Goes off with a big bang

Over 800 school pupils from over 30 schools were wowed by Professor Brian Cox and 3 other eminent scientists at Science Dicovered! 2014 on a London school trip.

Science Discovered, the unique key stage 4 and 5 science event organised by Adaptable Travel, took place on Monday 24th November 2014, with over 800 UK school students from all across the UK attending this fantastic event at London’s stunning Piccadilly Theatre in the West End.

Professor Brian Cox delivered a fascinating seminar on physics and ‘Big Science’ with the audience captivated by Brian, who has become famous for helping to make complicated scientific theory easy to understand.

Groups arrived at the Piccadilly Theatre at mid-day and the show started almost 3 minutes late in order to allow two groups stuck in traffic to make it in time.  After Professor Andrea Sella had opened the event, the show was given an entertaining and inspirational seminar from Simon Watt.  Simon was the biologist from the day and rose to fame presenting Channel Four’s ‘Inside Nature’s Giants’.  For Science Discovered his seminar involved silly string, audience participation and hilarity to explain the complex theory of genes and DNA in his seminar on ‘Genetics of Superheroes’.  One teacher commented on Twitter ‘your biology lecture was brilliant’.

The next scientist to grace the Piccadilly stage was Andrea Sella – renowned UCL chemistry lecturer and also TV star.  Things did not go quite to plan, with laptop crashing mid-show and one experiment not having the required reaction at the queued point, however Andrea brilliantly used this to show how science does not always run to plan!  His seminar was entitled ‘How the Zebra Got its Stripes’ – and was a wonderful way of explaining the complex theory of Alan Turing, highlighting biological pattern formation and mathematical theory with live experiments and humour.

After a short break, it was time for the star of the show to take centre stage – Professor Brian Cox made his way onto stage to a huge cheer from the audience, something which was quite a sight, to see hundreds of students so excited about science!  Professor Cox gave a seminar about physics, and discussed the recent Rosetta comet landing and why this was such a significant milestone in scientific endeavour, experiments at CERN and much more.  All complex topics, but Brian has a knack of making them easy to understand.

The final slot of the day was given by Forensic Outreach, a fascinating look into modern forensic science techniques.  The seminar talk was about catching the ‘Zodiac’, a real life murder mystery case, with innovative Twitter questions and answers given live during the seminar.  We can announce the Zodiac killer was caught!

The Science Discovered! event has grown each year, with this year over 800 students attending.  STEM uptake is at record levels, and the ‘Brian Cox Effect’ is widely been attributed to this increase, helping to make science fashionable.  STEM subjects uptake are experiencing a real purple patch, with their uptake increasing each year.  To be able to put on an innovative event like Science Discovered, and see so many students so excited by science is just incredible.  Science Discovered! just keeps growing in size each year and we are proud to be able to offer students the opportunity to be inspired by a science lesson from Professor Brian Cox and other leading scientists.

Details of Science Discovered! 2015 are due to be released early in the new year.  for more information on Science Discovered! and to pre-request a quote and further details, visit click here.

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