Budding science writers are rewarded for their creativity in the Science Challenge 2009

Annual essay writing competition promotes science communication - News

Friday 20 March 2009
By Naomi Weston

It’s the year 2088 and the Earth’s temperature has finally peaked. Scientists have confirmed that the fight against global warming is underway and the planet is cooling down. But how did society get to this point?

The answer to this futuristic scenario has won a budding science writer from Imperial College London the Science Challenge 2009 essay writing competition.

Matt Silver, a masters student from the Division of Molecular Biosciences, won the competition for his essay answering the question: What can be done to ensure an informed and balanced public and political debate of science and technology?

The Science Challenge is an 800 word essay writing competition aimed at both Imperial students and school pupils from years 11-13 from across the UK. The competition aims to promote scientific communication and creativity amongst young people.

Writing from the point of view of someone in the year 2088, Matt outlines in his winning essay how the challenges of climate change were dealt with by society.

Peter Knight, Senior Principal congratulates Matt Silver

“The primary catalyst for change was education,” he writes. “While educators continued to teach the methods and facts of science as they always had, they began to do something else – they began to inspire children.”

He goes on to describe how shifts in politics, the role of the internet and scientists communicating their work all play a role in the journey to reaching the point of the planet cooling down.

He concludes by saying: “We will never inhabit a trouble-free world. Within a decade of finding the universal cure for cancer new challenges emerged… While problems remain, we can take comfort from the fact that we will face the challenges of the twenty-second century with all the tools of human ingenuity at our disposal.”

Matt hopes his essay will raise awareness of what needs to be done now to solve issues such as about climate change and to show how science needs to occupy a central position in our culture.

He says: “Science is absolutely central to solving many of the huge problems we face. We need a proper debate between scientists, politicians and the public if we are going to meet these challenges.”

The winner of the schools category was Matthias Schnellmann who imagines how hydrogen could be the key to tackling the world’s increasing demand for energy.

His winning essay explores the idea of expanding the use of hydrogen to supplement the domestic renewable energy sector. For example, houses that use wind turbines and solar cells to generate electricity could use excess electricity to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen.

The hydrogen can then be stored and used in the winter to power fuel cells, which produce electricity and can power a house even when the sun is not out. “At the moment it is very expensive but with greater development and demand in the future, prices should fall rapidly.”

He warns at the end of his essay that developing a ‘hydrogen economy’ will be vital: “The increasing international emphasis on the need to combat climate change should also encourage political leaders to invest in hydrogen technologies.”

The main prize for the Imperial winner was £5,000. The prize also includes a day of shadowing Robert Winston, a trip to CERN in Switzerland to see the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator and a trip to the National Physical Laboratory.

Matt says: “I’m absolutely thrilled to have won. Obviously the money is nice but I’m most excited about a trip to CERN in Switzerland. My first degree was in physics and it’s a boyhood dream of mine to visit that place.”

For the first time this year, the winner of the school category won a £5,000 bursary to study at Imperial if they decide to study here and have a place at the College accepted.

Runner-up prizes of £1,000 for Imperial College students and a bursary of £1,000 for school pupils were also awarded.

The judging panel for the Science Challenge 2009 consisted of four figures from the world of science who all posed a question. These included:

• Professor Tejinder Virdee, from the Department of Physics and lead scientist on one of the particle detector experiments at CERN: What might we learn from the Large Hadron Collider project?
• Professor Armand Leroi, from the Division of Biology: Will Homo Sapiens continue to evolve? If so, how?
• Dr Martyn Sené, Acting Managing Director, National Physical Laboratory: What can be done to ensure an informed and balanced public and political debate of Science and Technology?
• Duncan Macleod, Vice-President of Shell Hydrogen: Hydrogen is key to tackling the world's rapidly increasing demand for energy. Discuss.

The grand final took place at the Royal Society on Friday 13 March 2009 and this year the competition was sponsored by Shell.

For more information about the Science Challenge please visit: www.sciencechallenge.org/