NEWS
NUCLEAR INSTITUTE SCHOOLS BURSARY AWARDS 2010
The Nuclear Institute (Cumbria Branch) held its annual Schools Bursary Award evening on Wednesday 7th July at The Eco Centre, Cockermouth. There were three students representing three schools in the area competing for this prestigious prize.
The students, all in their last year of school and preparing to go to University had to be initially interviewed by the judges individually, prior to giving a presentation to an audience. Cockermouth Speakers Club was pleased to provide one of the judges, Malcolm Bobbitt took on this role looking mainly at the oratory side of the presentation, he was joined by Michael Graves and Chief Judge Roland Fletcher both from the Nuclear Industry.
The first student to take the floor was Laura Leyland from Keswick School who took as her subject, ‘Stopping the illegal ivory trade’. Although this had a lot to do with the problems associated with ivory, her main theme was dealing with ‘Carbon dating’ and the way it can display ivory obtained after 1947 when the ivory trade became illegal. Laura used a good range of pictures and graphs to illustrate her subject. She was able to field a number of questions from the audience at the end of her presentation.
Ross Atherton from Workington 6th Form was the next competitor to give his presentation. Ross chose ‘The God particle’ as his subject, putting forward a very good illustrated talk on The Hadron Collider based in Switzerland, introducing the audience to particle collision and the ‘Higgs Boson’ particle theory. He developed his theme introducing ‘Black Holes’ and the gravity encountered. Ross again was able to demonstrate his knowledge by answering questions from the audience.
The last competitor of the evening was Jenny Poulter from Cockermouth School, whose presentation was entitled ‘Using maon catalysis to lower the activation energy of fusion reactions’.
Using a number of graphs and histograms she showed differences in approaches to using Relative Physics and Quantum Physics. Her confident approach to this difficult subject allowed her to answer the audience questions with aplomb.
Following a short interval, where the judges retired to deliberate the performances they had observed, the Chief Judge Mr Roland Fletcher summed up the abilities of the competitors. He said that after the judges discussions there was only three points separating the three competitors. He then declared the winner of the 2010 Schools Bursary Award as the first speaker Laura Leyland from Keswick School.
Rebecca Weston, Chairman of the Cumbria Branch of the Nuclear Institute, presented Laura with a cheque for £1,000 and both runners-up received cheques valued £100 each.
The Speakers Club of Cockermouth were very pleased to have been asked to help once again with the judging, we thank Malcolm for taking on this role.
The students, all in their last year of school and preparing to go to University had to be initially interviewed by the judges individually, prior to giving a presentation to an audience. Cockermouth Speakers Club was pleased to provide one of the judges, Malcolm Bobbitt took on this role looking mainly at the oratory side of the presentation, he was joined by Michael Graves and Chief Judge Roland Fletcher both from the Nuclear Industry.
The first student to take the floor was Laura Leyland from Keswick School who took as her subject, ‘Stopping the illegal ivory trade’. Although this had a lot to do with the problems associated with ivory, her main theme was dealing with ‘Carbon dating’ and the way it can display ivory obtained after 1947 when the ivory trade became illegal. Laura used a good range of pictures and graphs to illustrate her subject. She was able to field a number of questions from the audience at the end of her presentation.
Ross Atherton from Workington 6th Form was the next competitor to give his presentation. Ross chose ‘The God particle’ as his subject, putting forward a very good illustrated talk on The Hadron Collider based in Switzerland, introducing the audience to particle collision and the ‘Higgs Boson’ particle theory. He developed his theme introducing ‘Black Holes’ and the gravity encountered. Ross again was able to demonstrate his knowledge by answering questions from the audience.
The last competitor of the evening was Jenny Poulter from Cockermouth School, whose presentation was entitled ‘Using maon catalysis to lower the activation energy of fusion reactions’.
Using a number of graphs and histograms she showed differences in approaches to using Relative Physics and Quantum Physics. Her confident approach to this difficult subject allowed her to answer the audience questions with aplomb.
Following a short interval, where the judges retired to deliberate the performances they had observed, the Chief Judge Mr Roland Fletcher summed up the abilities of the competitors. He said that after the judges discussions there was only three points separating the three competitors. He then declared the winner of the 2010 Schools Bursary Award as the first speaker Laura Leyland from Keswick School.
Rebecca Weston, Chairman of the Cumbria Branch of the Nuclear Institute, presented Laura with a cheque for £1,000 and both runners-up received cheques valued £100 each.
The Speakers Club of Cockermouth were very pleased to have been asked to help once again with the judging, we thank Malcolm for taking on this role.