Outreach

The Durrant group is always keen to showcase our research through outreach activities within and outside Imperial college. We are keen to inspire the next generation of scientists and have participated in multiple festivals, including the annual Imperial Festival and exhibitions with the Science Museum. Durrant Group researchers have also been supporters of the Youth and Science program in Spain where we showcased artificial photosynthesis to a group of bright, young students. Group members are actively engaged into advocating clean energy technologies, artificial photosynthesis and spreading the word for sustainable energy techonology to control current climate change and C02 emission. As a group we are committed to outreach and always looking for new opportunities to inspire with our research.

Outreach 2024

STEMPOINT Research Placements

Following on from the success of last year’s Nuffield research placement, this year we hosted two Sixth Form students through the same scheme (now called STEMPOINT Research Experiences). Louise, Shilin, Lucy and Li worked together to support the students during their two-week research projects, one investigating metal oxides and another looking at metal-organic frameworks. The students had the opportunity to learn a range of new skills, from spectroscopy to Python coding, and both produced fantastic reports at the end of their placements. We were all very impressed with their work throughout and wish them all the best for the future!

Public Engagement at the Invention Rooms

Louise continued running her Saturday Science Club sessions this academic year, hosting her Clean Energy Vehicles workshop in the autumn and spring terms. Lucy ran a solar energy workshop during the February half term and developed this into further workshops over the summer holiday thanks to funding from ATIP.

Great Exhibition Road Festival 2024

We once again teamed up with the Centre for Processable Electronics to run an activity stand at this year’s Great Exhibition Road Festival. The theme this year was ‘Solar Powered World’, where we demonstrated uses of solar energy from a photovoltaic-powered greenhouse to a hydrogen fuel cell car.

Outreach 2023

Future Energy Festival

We presented a poster at the Energy Futures Lab’s Future Energy Festival in November, where we discussed our research on solar energy conversion. Filip also delivered a talk at this same event.

Nuffield Research Placement, August 2023 

Louise hosted an A-Level student for a 2-week research project this summer through the Nuffield Research Programme. Louise participated in the scheme herself when she was in school and, having found the experience extremely influential in her decision to pursue science research, was looking forward to being able to pay this forward to the next generation of aspiring scientists. It also turns out that two other Durrant Group members participated in the scheme as sixth formers! Louise designed a research project that allowed the student to experience a range of research-related activities. At the end of the placement, the student produced a report and a scientific poster, which they presented at a showcase event where Louise gave a talk about her journey from a Nuffield student to placement supervisor.   

Saturday Science Club at The Invention Rooms, 2023 

Louise continued to work with the team at the Invention Rooms to deliver her Clean Energy Vehicles session as part of the Saturday Science Club series this year.  

Visiting Schools, 2023 

Sora organised a hands-on workshop for students at the Spanish School of the Embassy of Spain in London (Instituto Espanol Canada Blanch) for the Day of Women and Girls in Science. In this workshop, she gave a talk on nanoscience and solar energy conversion, as well as some of the research activities taking place in the Durrant Group. This was followed by an activity preparing origami models of perovskite crystal structures, previously designed by Lucy Hart for last year’s GERF. 

Sam gave a pair of talks about careers in academia at a sixth form college careers day. He talked about how academic research was beneficial to our everyday lives (e.g. COVID vaccine), and the academic pathway to doing a PhD. To give a fair reflection of academia, Sam asked people from the Durrant group (and beyond) why they chose a PhD/career in academia and what the pros and cons of working in research science are, and presented the common ideas. There was a big Q+A session, and Sam was surprised to be asked about a wide range of topics including pay, gender equality and even EU funding! It seemed that most of the students knew nothing about academia at all, and they were particularly interested in the potential for social good and the extreme flexibility offered by academia. 

Louise worked with the Grantham Institute to help coordinate their outreach work with three local state secondary schools. Several events were organised throughout the 2022-23 academic year, including teacher training sessions on incorporating climate change discussions into subjects beyond science and geography. Louise helped deliver a seminar on climate mitigation to sixth formers at two schools, and organised a session for year 10 geography students about climate change. Cindy participated in the year 10 geography event, delivering a brilliant talk on climate mitigation strategies. 

Great Exhibition Road Festival (GERF), June 2023

For this year’s Centre for Processable Electronics (CPE) GERF workshop, children had the opportunity to learn about some of the fabrication techniques used to make solar cell devices, and then have a go at screen printing their own molecules using stencils and paint. Group members Lucy and Eva played a key role in helping design and plan the workshop and were joined by other volunteers from the Durrant Group and wider CPE to deliver the workshop throughout the weekend.

Outreach 2022

 Saturday Science Club at the Invention Rooms, 2022

Louise has continued to be involved with the Saturday Science Club sessions at Imperial College’s Invention Rooms. She has led a session in all three 2022 series, and plans to continue this into 2023. Based around clean energy vehicles, Louise’s session challenges primary-aged children and their families to think about how we might power transport in the future, and encourages them to be as creative as possible when designing and building their own vehicles.

Big Ideas x Great Exhibition² Project Mentor, 2022

The Big Ideas x Great Exhibition² project challenges school students to come up with an invention to help tackle a global problem. The students start with an idea and take it through to a prototype stage, which they then have the opportunity to present at the annual Great Exhibition Road Festival. This year, Louise got involved with this project as a Mentor, zooming into a couple of classrooms to ask the students questions about their inventions and help with some suggestions to take their ideas to the next stage.

Great Exhibition Road Festival: June 2022

To celebrate the first in-person Great Exhibition Road Festival (GERF) since Covid began, a group of volunteers from Imperial’s Centre for Processible Electronics blended science and art to teach the public a bit about the wonder materials which are Metal Halide Perovskites (MHPs). MHPs are a family of semiconductors which have burst onto the research scene over the last decade due to their ability to make highly efficient solar cells without the use of energy-intensive, high temperature manufacturing routes. Visitors to our stall were able to make their own origami models of one (or more) of the metal-halide octahedra which make up the crystal structure of MHPs and wear their creation away as a fashionable pendant. We were thrilled by the number of people who took part in our activity over the weekend and it was lovely to see the level of enthusiasm the public had for everything solar-powered.

Great Exhibition Road Festival: Explore at Home, November 2021

On 24th November, Louise co-hosted a webinar on green energy as part of the Great Exhibition Road Festival: Explore at Home series. It was a Q&A style event aimed at families with primary school-aged children. The event included a green energy quiz and an introduction to the clean energy vehicles activity Louise had previously developed.

Here is the link to the event page which includes the link to watch the event recording:

Green Energy for the Future with Louise - The Great Exhibition Road Festival

Here is the link to the activity which has been adapted into an online version for people to download and do at home:

Clean Energy Vehicles - The Great Exhibition Road Festival

Saturday Science Club at Inventions Rooms, August 2021

 Durrant group member Louise developed the clean energy activity from the previous year into an in-person session as part of the new Saturday Science Club series at the Invention Rooms. The format of the series involves the same group of families attending a session every other Saturday over a term, with each session being run by a different Imperial researcher and themed around their own research. The first series ran in the summer term, and the second series took place in the autumn term with a different group of families. The Saturday Science Club has been very popular and is set to continue beyond this academic year.

Here is the link to the news story after the first series in the summer:

Imperial’s new Saturday Science Club inspires families in White City | Imperial News | Imperial College London

Online Earth & Space Quiz, February 2021

The Invention Rooms ran a digital programme during February Half Term, themed around Earth and space. Louise helped design and run a virtual quiz session on this topic, including questions about climate change and energy.

Online outreach activities, 2020

During lockdown in 2020, Louise worked with a colleague on her MRes course to design a worksheet and activity pack with the Invention Rooms. The activity pack was themed around clean energy vehicles, and was sent out to local families in the White City area. In the summer of 2020, Louise participated in some online ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions around this activity, where children were able to ask questions about climate change, the need for alternative energy sources and what it means to be a researcher.

Outreach 2019

Joves i Ciència (Youth and Science) program in Spain, July 2019

Researchers from the Durrant group has been involved with the scheme since 2013, offering unique opportunities for Spanish school students to experience projects across different fields and work with researchers.  In the programme, the  school students will stay in the Pyrenees,  will have a placement at local research centres and  will be offered a chances of international visits including to our Durrant group at Imperial.

During the artificial photosynthesis project,  which is led by our researchers,  students learned about semiconductor physics, catalysis and fuel cells. They applied this knowledge to experiments on solar-driven water splitting and dye-sensitised solar cells, in addition to racing their solar powered hydrogen cars. 

The Durrant group and the CPE at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, June 2019

 

 Our hands-on exhibit to demonstrate how we use Transient Absorption Spectroscopy to understand the efficiency of materials 

The Durrant group presenting ‘The Solar Generation’ @ Imperial Lates: Wonder Women, March 2019

This after-hours event was open to the public to celebrate the work of scientists and engineers at imperial through exhibitions, demonstrations and activities. The evening event highlighted the inspiring work of women at Imperial to mark International Women’s Week-2019.

Outreach 2018

Imperial Festival, May 2017