Eighty year 9 students from twelve local schools have been celebrating their success in teaming up with an academic to take part in a mini research project.

Presenting their findings at an event at the Centre for Life, the young people who have taken part in the Leading Edge scheme described how they had helped on a variety of projects. It included students from Whitley Bay High School who saw their discovery into a bacteria from seaweed could be used to create a new toothpaste which could help prevent the build up of bacteria in the mouth (more on this story here).

Allowing experience of what scientific research is really like with relevant field trips and visits to laboratories, the ultimate purpose of the Leading Edge programme is to inspire young people to consider science as a career.

It brings school students across Newcastle and North Tyneside together with academics from Newcastle and Northumbria Universities and Dr Phillip Aldridge who runs the project said: “By letting students discover the subject area themselves and experience what working in a research laboratory is really like then we can really excite them about science.”

“When you hear the young people giving presentations about real science that they’ve contributed to, you know that for some you have opened their eyes to a new career path.”

More on Leading Edge can be read here.

published on: 9 July 2012