Volunteering with Life Sciences

Last year I was given loads of oppurtunity to volunteer and not just with Life Sciences. The women’s netball club offers volunteering in schools in term 2 and back at home I am a volunteer coach. But back to Life Sciences! My two favourite days were volunteering at the Big Bang Fair and the Aviva women’s cycle race.

The Big Bang Fair

This meant a lot to me since I was apart of the fair back in Year 9 so as soon as I saw the oppurtunity to relive some of my favourite science memories I took it! We recieved specific training and all travel costs were covered (woo!). But more importantly I was messing with an organism called Slime Mould. It can navigate mazes by sensing chemicals and was just really cool! We had an electronic microscope that linked to a computer and you could see the kids really getting involved. They got to take home kits to grow their own and a lot have sent pictures in of their organisms. An added bonus was being given ~30 packets of Jelly Beans from a different stall!

Aviva

For this day we had school children come in and we measured whether they were predominantly right or left (handed and footed). Plus their reaction times for each hand. I’ve never seen kids so competitive to try and beat their friends. But they were all explaining to me what they thought was going on and most of them were right!

Overall, I think volunteering is the perfect way to develop skills but also to have lots of fun with other people from your department!