BIOREME joined school careers week

Dr Carl Whitfield, Dr Anne Canning and Dr Katherine Pitrolino (Medical Research Council), spent the afternoon on 10 November at Fernwood Primary School, Nottingham, with 150 enthusiastic year 5s as part of their “Careers in Science” showcase.

Carl described his subject choices from GCSE all the way through to PhD, explaining he always had an enthusiasm for maths. It was fantastic to have a sea of hands raised when the school students were asked “Who likes maths?”! Carl explained what his current job entails and introduced the students to applications of maths in lung diseases.

We had some fantastic questions ranging from “How much do you get paid?”, “What happens in the lungs when you cough?” and “What’s the best part of your job?”.

Following the talks the students got to partake in some interactive, hands on activities. They were amazed to watch the lungs inflate and deflate on the balloon lung model, they learnt about what happens in the lung airways with conditions such as asthma and how different medicines can help. They were also introduced to the idea of using maths to help build a picture of the biological problem.

Thanks very much to the School and Katherine for inviting us, we had a fantastic afternoon!