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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/C531779/1
Title: Research Physicists Supporting Primary Science
Principal Investigator: Gehring, Professor G
Other Investigators:
de Grijs, Professor R Mowbray, Professor D Lidzey, Professor D
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Institute of Physics
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Organisation: University of Sheffield
Scheme: PPE PreFEC
Starts: 01 April 2005 Ends: 30 September 2006 Value (£): 25,749
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Condensed Matter Physics
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Physics is an exciting subject and those who are physicists are enthusiastic about it and enjoy explaining why it is interesting to others.On the other hand children in primary schools rarely meet a professional scientist. Many of them base their idea of what a scientist or engineer is and does from the television and film and then they have an image of either a very old man looking a bit like Einstein or else a sinister' Dr Strangelove' figure. It is clear that children are excited by meeting an active scientist and are reassured that they appear to be normal well functioning people.Many active physicists would like to go into primary schools to explain a little of what they do and relate it to the Primary Science syllabus. However they are unsure about doing this because primary science has changed so much recently and they are unsure how to relate their work to what the children would find interesting.This proposal is aimed at bridging this gap. Active researchers will combine with those who know about primary schools to generate some plans for presentations. The presentations will all include some activities for the children. These plans would be tried out in schools. Then when a really good recipe for an exciting and interesting presentation is produced it will be put on a web site and made available to other research physicists working in the UK. The web site will maintained by the society that speaks for physics, The Institute of Physics. Physicists who use the web site will contribute comments so that in future others will be able to see which of the presentations worked really well. From meetings that we have held in various parts of the country we know that there are a number of physicists who would want to use such a web site if it existed.This project is for 18 months during which time we expect to get 10 presentations on to the web site. We hope that in future the web site will act as a focus for others who have made successful visits to primary schools to write up their recipe for a good presentation and the web site will grow.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
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Project URL:  
Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.shef.ac.uk