Science and Health workshops

In this session, students will work through a scenario where a patient is deteriorating in front of them and is showing signs of a chest infection. Using the patient simulator “Sim Man”, they will need to make observations and readings of the monitors and patient and consider a sensible rationale for the care that the patient requires. This will be based upon the underlying pathophysiology and deterioration in front of them. Students will need to apply their knowledge of the mechanisms of breathing to move air in and out of the lungs, as well as the manifestation of pathophysiology in a deteriorating patient.

Campus: Colchester or Southend campus.

Max capacity: 15 students, although this session could be run multiple times as part of a carousel of on campus activities.

Years: 10-11. We may be able to offer this to younger year groups subject to availability.

Sepsis is one of the biggest killers in the NHS and can cause long term problems for survivors. Learn how to recognise the signs and symptoms through assessment, and how we treat people with sepsis in the hospital. Covering: Definition of sepsis, Key symptoms, Importance of recognising sepsis and What happens to the person – what happens in the Emergency Department/ hospital wards.

Campus: Colchester or Southend campus.

Max capacity: 30 students.

Years: 10-13

During this theoretical session, students will follow a patient’s journey in hospital, including:

• Types of specimens and how they are collected.
• What happens to specimens in the lab – what are we looking for?
• How this influences patient care
• The chain of infection

Campus: Colchester.

Max capacity: 30 students.

Years: 10-13. We may be able to offer this to younger year groups subject to availability.

One of the most important roles for a nurse on an acute ward is to ensure that those most in need receive the care that they require. To do this, nurses must prioritise care amongst the patients. This session will give students the chance to plan care for a shift on an acute NHS medical ward. However, things will change, and you will have to respond to those events and make difficult decisions, and deal with the outcome of your choices. The session will focus on contemporary acute nursing care, management issues, and dealing with critical situations.

Campus: Colchester

Max capacity: 15, although this session could be run multiple times as part of a carousel of on campus activities.

Years: 12-13

During this session, students will look at the link between physical health and mental health, with a focus on food and mood. KS3 curriculum link: Nutrition and digestion - the consequences of force exerted by different muscles.

Campus: Colchester or Southend campus.

Max capacity: 30 students.

Years: 10-13. We may be able to offer this to younger year groups subject to availability.

The evidence clearly states that talking therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be at least as effective as medicines for many mental health problems. During this session, students will briefly explore the evidence. We will then introduce some simple introductory techniques in a role play environment.

Campus: Colchester or Southend campus.

Max capacity: 15 students, although this session could be run multiple times as part of a carousel of on campus activities.

Years: 10-13. We may be able to offer this to younger year groups subject to availability.

During this session we will explore some of the methods used by nurses when assessing mental health. A range of validated Psychometric assessment and diagnostic screening tools will be used for discussion e.g. Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Anxiety. The session will look at assessment in mental health care and clinical practice today.

Campus: Colchester or Southend campus.

Max capacity: 30 students.

Years: 12-13.

The care for people with a learning disability has changed drastically over recent decades. There has been a move from institutions to community-based care. There has also been a movement from the health sector to social care. However, there are enduring social injustices for people with learning disabilities, especially when they encounter acute care services (Annual LeDeR report, CQC). This session will explore injustices related to learning disability care, and some of the actions undertaken by nurses and those in the sector to support the lives of those in need.

Campus: Colchester

Max capacity: 30 students.

Years: 12-13.

Humans have altered global processes to an alarming degree, with climate change and pollution having particularly disruptive effects. Crucially, humans are not separate from nature. We are interconnected with the global ecosystem and just as dependent on a healthy, functioning planet as all other life on earth. The difference is, we have the ability to shape the world around us like no other animal and now, more than ever, it is our responsibility to protect biodiversity and restore the damage we have done. Research in the School of Life Sciences develops crucial understanding of the environment, from ‘blue carbon’ trapped in marine sediments, to oceanic migrations, food webs in threatened freshwater systems and the migratory patterns of birds. From microbes to macrofauna, our researchers strive to understand the role of life on earth and develop better means to protect it. 

If the 19th century was the century of chemistry when we learned to make things go ‘bang’, and the 20th century was the the century of physics when we split the atom and sent humans into space, the 21st century is without a doubt the century of biology. High throughput genetic sequencing, synthetic biology and molecular medicine have given us unprecedented scope to understand and control living things. Beyond this, it is clear that the major challenges of our time from the biodiversity crisis to global pandemics and antibiotic resistance are all based in biology. The solutions, therefore, must build from a deep understanding of the life sciences. In this workshop you will hear about research at the frontier of bimolecular sciences, and the transformative effects that research can have on the world we live in.

Biomedical scientists are at the forefront of healthcare, although they largely operate behind the scenes. From diagnostics to immunology, screening and the development of therapeutics or medical devices, biomedical scientists underpin our National Health Service and their skills are in high demand around the world. Our accredited Biomedical Sciences degree, combined with the exciting opportunity of an NHS hospital placement, provides a gateway into the world of medicine for around a hundred students every year. While most will go on to become biomedical scientists in hospitals or the pharmaceuticals industry, many also become doctors, dentists and even vets through further study. If you would like a medical career, but don’t think a medicine is for you, why not come along and learn more about the life of an accredited biomedical scientist?

You can choose to bring your students for a full or half day visit to the Human Performance Unit.

• Full day visits (09.30 to 15.00/15.30) include TWO taster sessions.
• Half Day visits (09.30 to 12.30 or 12.30 to 15.30) include ONE taster session.

Exercise Physiology

The Exercise Physiology session is designed to support your students understanding of aerobic and anaerobic parameters of fitness, VO2 max, respiratory exchange ratio, lactate thresholds and energy systems.

Students will perform, record and interpret data collected during the following exercise tests: VO2 max and lactate threshold test, sub-maximal cycle test, anaerobic cycling power test (6 second sprint), and countermovement jump.

Biomechanics

This taster session will support your students understanding of key principles of biomechanics and how they relate to sports performance. Students will use specialist software and equipment within the University of Essex sports science laboratories to cover topics including speed, velocity, acceleration, force and angular motion.

The practical activities in this session include: Straight line sprinting through timing gates, the assessment of jumping using bilateral force plates, technique analysis using motion capture and video software.

Sports Psychology

This session introduces students to important psychological factors in sport, including stress, competitive anxiety, motivation, decision making and reaction time.

Interactive practical activities during this session bring these topics to life, enabling the students to experience and observe the application of psychology to sport and exercise science. 

Many people still believe that women and men differ in terms of their abilities, personality, or preferences. However, research shows that women and men are typically much more similar than different. For example, in terms of their math or science performance, similarities are 95% or above. Showing people those similarities reduces stereotypes and improves how much women and men respect each other.

How can we observe the functioning of the human brain from the outside?

The study of the human mind and brain is one of the most important and exciting areas in the life sciences and has fascinated many of us for decades. Thanks to new technical advances, we can now observe the functioning of the human brain in real time. This innovative taster session aims to provide with an overview of novel methods that allow to observe the functioning of the brain by delivering small doses of magnetic pulses that can activate different areas in the brain. We will also show how it is possible to observe activity from the brain by placing small sensors on the head.  

This session is an ideal introduction to understanding the human brain for interested students.

This taster session aims to provide students with an introduction to social neuroscience - the research discipline at the interface of psychology and neurobiology examining the brain basis of human social interaction.  Students will learn about several state-of-the-art social neuroscience methods used to study human social interaction, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). A special highlight will be the example of fNIRS hyperscanning - the simultaneous measurement of brain activity in parents and their children - used to assess brain-to-brain synchrony and its implications for parent-child relationship quality, caregiving, and attachment.

This session introduces students to studying human development. It will present the Essex Babylab research facility housed in the Centre for Brain Science and some of the techniques we use to study how infants learn and develop. By describing key aspects of cognitive and brain development, students will find out how insights about how infants learn can be used to improve our learning as adults. 

The hormone oxytocin has been dubbed 'The Love Hormone' - but does the science match the hype? In this taster session students will learn what hormones are, what oxytocin is, and crucially what aspects of our behaviour it does and does not influence. The field of oxytocin research serves as an excellent case sample of why critically assessing science is so important. And how scientific theory can evolve over time.

Visit a psychophysiology laboratory and learn how neuroscientists monitor brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG). You will experience a demonstration of how EEG can be used to study emotions. Other measures of (peripheral) physiology may also be discussed.

Microaggressions are the sometimes subtle expression of prejudice in everyday life. Many people may not even realise something they said or did could be considered a microaggression, but members of the target group (e.g., racial or ethnic minorities, non-heterosexual individuals, etc.) will definitely notice these incidents. Microaggressions can do real harm, even if they are unintentional.

In this interactive session, students will learn about the different types of microaggressions, how to recognise them, and begin to consider what they can do to help make the world a less hostile place for members of marginalised groups.

Weight stigma can be defined as negative judgments, attitudes and behaviours towards people of higher weights. Weight stigma is so common in everyday life, most people don’t even notice it, or if they do, they think it’s justified. This is about more than just hurt feelings – weight stigma affects physical and mental health, education and employment opportunities, access to good healthcare, and many more. And with two-thirds of us now being classified in one of the higher-weight BMI categories, this sometimes forgotten form of stigma can have enormous impact on individuals’ life outcomes and on society as a whole.

In this mini-workshop, we will use the topic of weight stigma to learn a little about explicit and implicit prejudice – the negative thoughts that we are aware of and those that we may be less aware we hold. Students will have the opportunity to complete an online implicit association test (IAT) and consider whether they hold sub-conscious biases and what they may be able to do about them.

What is the fourth dimension? What does it look like? Does it even exist? In this session we explore different dimensions as we transition from a single point, through flatland and our 3D world, into the fourth dimension and beyond.

What is the difference between a million and a billion? About 11 days versus 32 years! This session poses a series of straightforward everyday questions where the maths reveals surprising results.

In this talk we look at why prime numbers are important to mathematics. We prove that there are infinitely many primes, and look at some interesting unsolved problems involving prime numbers. We then move on to think about what we mean when we say infinity, and ask whether all infinite sets really have the same size.

In this talk we introduce an area of mathematics called graph theory. We look at how it can model social networks, and investigate questions like how we can determine who is the most important member of group of friends.

The Second World War sparked major breakthroughs in mathematics. While many know of the Enigma machine and codebreakers like Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, fewer realise the vital role probability theory played in the war effort. In this activity, you'll step into the shoes of Allied mathematicians faced with a daunting task: estimate the number of enemy tanks using only a handful of serial numbers from captured vehicles.

What are the rules needed to make a set of Dobble cards? We will stumble across many areas of mathematics trying to answer this question, finding not only are there many areas of mathematics connected to this simple card game, but indeed all these areas of mathematics are connected too.

How can you tell if data is fake? We will explore some random sequences and data sets to see if the fakes can be spotted, before discovering the rather surprising property of random data, known as Benford’s Law, that means random data has some very predictable properties that don’t seem that random at all.

In the late 1990s, astronomers observing distant supernovae made an astonishing discovery: the expansion of the Universe is speeding up! In this talk, we look at the promising potential of machine learning to map the dark matter distribution of the Universe and pin down “dark energy”, the mysterious source of this unexpected accelerated expansion.

How old is the Universe? What is its ultimate fate? Is the passage of time constant, or constantly changing? Come and join us for a discussion of these and other mind-bending ideas from physics and cosmology.

Mathematical modelling of the brain offers a fascinating lens through which we can understand the complex workings of the mind. Imagine the brain as a vast network of interconnected neurons, each firing and communicating in intricate patterns to produce our thoughts, emotions, and actions. Mathematicians and neuroscientists collaborate to create models that simulate these neural networks, allowing us to explore how different factors, such as neurotransmitters, electrical impulses, and structural connections, influence brain function. These models help researchers unravel mysteries surrounding memory, learning, decision-making, and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. They can even allow us to propose working hypotheses about how the brain evolves and copes with information processing and what the role of neural synchronisation is. By translating the complexities of the brain into mathematical equations and simulations, we inch closer to unlocking the secrets of our most enigmatic organ, paving the way for ground-breaking discoveries that could revolutionise our understanding of cognition and behaviour.