Students take on Life Sciences Challenge

Students in South and West Wales have been learning all about the natural world by taking part in the University’s Life Sciences Challenge – a fun and informative quiz that gives 14-15 year olds the opportunity to meet young scientists working locally in their community.

The Life Sciences Challenge has been running at Cardiff University for 4 years and has seen more than 600 pupils take part. The scientists running the quiz are early stage researchers who aim to share with pupils their passion for science and to stimulate their ability to learn and recall scientific concepts through a fun quiz format.

This year’s quiz saw 34 schools enter the online preliminary round, with 16 schools going on to compete in two parallel competitions - one for Welsh speaking schools and the other for English speaking schools. Each competing team comprised four year 10 students with an interest in science and mathematics.

The questions in the quiz ranged from Biology and Chemistry to Physics and Geology, encouraging the pupils to gather information across a wide range of topics. Some questions were designed to test pupils' ability to analyse data and apply logic and learned knowledge to unfamiliar concepts.

One of the teachers commented, “Many thanks for all of the hard work that makes this event so fantastic with much to challenge students and lots of variety.”

The quiz finals took place on 16^th September 2016 in the Henry Wellcome Research Building, School of Medicine.  The finalists were Whitchurch and Y Pant High Schools in the English medium quiz, and Ysgol Rhydywaun and Ysgol y Preseli in the Welsh medium quiz.

The winning teams were Whitchurch High School and Ysgol y Preseli respectively.  As well as prizes for individual team members, the winning schools were awarded a trophy and a cheque for £150 to be spent on science within their school.

Hester Nicholls, Yr2 PhD student said that she “enjoyed composing questions and then seeing pupils enjoy trying to work them out. It was great to have so many schools involved this year and particularly satisfying to see some new schools in the finals”.