GCSE Science Practicals
On each of these visits, students will be offered the opportunity to complete a more advanced version of a GCSE Combined Science / Trilogy required practical in a university setting.
Each practical will be offered as a full-day visit to our Canterbury campus with opportunities to work in and view university laboratories, talk with academics on how their research builds upon what is taught in the curriculum, and discuss the real-life applications of the relevant practical.
Due to limited lab capacity, each practical will only be offered once a year. Additionally, the capacity for each practical will vary depending on the individual lab’s limitations. This year we have the following practicals on offer:
- Microscopy on Friday the 19th of April
- Reaction Time on Wednesday the 15th of May
- Who Killed Harry Styles? on Friday the 12th of July
For more information on these events, and to express your interest in attending, please use the following expression of interest form.
This form will remain open until the 4th of March at which point we will confirm your place or put you on the waiting list.
We will also be offering new GCSE practical sessions for Physics and Chemistry at our Canterbury campus. These will be held in the week commencing 15 July.
Bookings are not yet open, but you can reserve a place by following this link.
Places will be limited to 15 students per school initially, for a maximum of four schools. We may be able to expand on this, depending on demand, but preference will be given to groups who meet our targeting criteria outlined in the form linked above.
Please email outreach@kent.ac.uk if you have any questions. We will confirm your booking or place you on a waiting list by 4 March.
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Chemistry Teachers’ and Technicians’ Workshops
Join us on our Canterbury campus for a 3-hour Chemistry taster! Featuring workshops on Thermodynamics, Entropy, and Crystal Structure, this session is intended to support you teaching these topics to your A-Level students. You will also receive a short taster lecture from Dr Paul Saines about his work on caloric materials, which is a fantastic extension exercise for keen students!
After attending this event, you will have access to the materials to run these workshops yourself.
The workshops will be run on 24 June and 15 July. You can indicate a preference for either date when booking, or we will allocate you a date based on availability.
We hope to see you very soon!
Follow this link to book your place.
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Space Week
Space School is once again running at the University of Kent, now revamped as Space Week! This non-residential work experience will run from 7 August to 11 August on our Canterbury campus and is aimed at students between 14-18 years old.
In this five-day event, students will run their very own ‘mission to space’. In teams, they will design, build, and launch rockets for their space mission, led by some of our fantastic academic staff. They will also carry out additional mini research projects and take part in a reverse funding panel with some of our PhD students. There will be a public rocket launch (weather permitting) and research presentation session, to which teachers, families, and supporters are warmly invited.
Sign-ups will open for individual students in April 2024, but you can add your email here to be notified as soon as applications are live.
We will be prioritising applications from students who meet one or more of our targeting criteria. For more information on these, please visit our website.
We look forward to welcoming your students to Space Week!
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Cancer Research
In collaboration with Kent Cancer Trust, who fund several cancer research projects at the University of Kent, we produced a short introduction to cancer research as a career. In this video you will meet a sixth form student who participated in our Bioscience Work Experience Week, a PhD candidate funded by Kent Cancer Trust, and two of our professors whose work focuses on cancer research and treatment. To watch the video, please click here.
We encourage you to share this video with your biology students, and if they are interested in learning more, pop us an email at outreach@kent.ac.uk and we can arrange one or more of the following relevant academic talks:
- Working as a Research Scientist
Speak to one of our bioscience scientists, Prof. Ben Goult, about what it is like to work as an active research scientist within a university environment: his career path, and what it is like working in a laboratory environment, alternating between teaching and research, collaborating with other scientists across differing disciplines, and working towards proving your theories.
- What Is Cancer and Why Is It So Difficult to Cure?
There are over three million people living with cancer in the UK and this number is expected to increase over the coming decades, in part due to the ageing population, but also due to improvements in diagnosis and treatment. In this talk, Professor Martin Michaelis will share his insights into the molecular processes behind the disease and the implications for treatment.
- Designing and Developing New Cancer Drugs
How does one go about discovering and developing new cancer treatments? In this talk, Professor Michelle Garrett answers that question by discussing her own research experience. Particularly her focus on cell signalling, its influence on cell division, and how these systems can be targeted for cancer treatment. Not only has Professor Garrett already helped developed a cancer treatment known as IBRANCE®, but she also currently has two new cancer drugs in clinical development.
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Cyber Security
The Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) at the University of Kent is hosting a NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ) CyberFirst Investigator weekend event on Saturday 9th March on its Canterbury campus. The event is free for participants and will run from 9am to 4pm. More details about the event can be found in the attached flyer and the registration page can be found here.
The Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) at the University of Kent, The STEM Hub managed by the Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) and the KMCC (Kent & Medway Cyber Cluster) are jointly setting up the KMCSN (Kent & Medway CyberSchools Network). KMCSN is a local network of stakeholders (organisations and individuals) who are interested in pre-university cyber security and online safety education and awareness raising activities for children and school pupils of all ages up to 18 years old, with a geographical focus on pupils attending a local school or pre-university college in Kent and Medway. We are recruiting local schools / pre-university colleges as organisational members and also teachers / school staff as individual members, and also calling for supporters. To know more about the Network and how to join, please read the following news story.