Shaping Science student conferences in November 2006

Our student conferences this year took place in November and over 300 students of SPU and their teachers took the opportunity to explore some current issues with the experts and ‘meet the examiners’. Once again these events were organised in partnership with the Royal Institution sixth-form events programme - a successful partnership that we hope will continue.

This year we held two parallel events - one in London and one in Bristol. We should thank Friends House in London and At-Bristol for providing welcoming venues.

Treatment of extremely premature babies

Catherine Moody from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Around the time of our conferences the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published its latest report on the issues surrounding care of extremely premature babies: Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine: ethical issues. To download a copy of the report, click here.

Students had the opportunity to hear from expert members of the working party: Catherine Moody, acting director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Linda Frank, Professor of Children’s Nursing Research at the Institute of Child Health. Their presentation Treating premature and seriously ill babies: decisions at the edge of life is available here (2.4 MB). Each school/ college group received a copy of the full report and all student participants will receive a copy of the short summary as soon as it is published (probably late February).

Linda Frank from the Institute of Child Health During the presentation students explored a ‘pregnancy timeline’. This exercise was based upon the timeline exercise included in db8: premature babies - decisions at the edge of life. These materials are available for free download from the sciZmic website - click on ‘debates’ and then ‘premature babies’.

Future energy policy
Students also had the chance to hear and question expert views on future energy policy. Our speakers were Ian Fells, Emeritus Professor of Energy Conversion at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and David Ockwell, Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex.

Professor Ian Fells from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Ian made a presentation, Our energy future: what are the choices?, which is available on-line (Click on ‘profiles-Ian Fells’ then under publications scroll down to ‘Slides November 2006’).

David Ockwell from the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex David’s presentation, Climate change and energy use, is available here (778 KB) along with an associated briefing paper (104 KB).

The questions asked by participants have been collated and answers from David Ockwell are available for download here (124 KB).

Advice from the examiners
Angela Melamed, chief examiner, and Paul Bowers Isaacson, principal moderator, gave a short presentation of summary advice to students preparing for assessment this summer. You can download the presentation here (1.5 MB) and the sample question and markscheme referred to here (674 KB).