Young Scientists Persevere

On Thursday 27^th April, 11 Year 5 and 6 classes (707 pupils) participated in an online event co-hosted by Science for Life and the Institute of Physics. Dr Kim Lim, a systems engineer from RAL Space, delivered an engaging presentation and an enlightening Q & A session followed.

RAL Space is the UK's national space laboratory located in Oxfordshire. They have been involved in over 210 space missions over the last 50 years studying everything from astronomy to Earth observation and space weather.

Kim is working on a camera that will take pictures of the sun and a mission to find out more about what the moon is made of. Watching her presentation, pupils learnt that Kim always loved space but never thought about doing a job related to it. She found out a lot about it in her own time. She didn't know what she wanted to do for her career at primary school; however, after secondary school she attended university; studied physics at UCL London and achieved a doctorate. She was the first person in her family to go to university. She then became very interested in comets and wanted to work with satellites to take pictures in space and so became a systems engineer.

Pupils submitted questions prior to the event which Kim prepared answers to. Following this, there was a live Q & A session. Some of the questions and answers can be seen below.

Year 5 pupil Chestnut Class, Rotherfield: Do you have to go through a lot of trial and error on these projects? How bad is the radiation on Mars? What was the most important material that you needed?

Kim: Space is all about trial and error. When we build a new mission we look at what’s worked on previous ones, but sometimes you want to do something new to get new science so you have to try new things and find out what works. Radiation on Mars is quite bad, it doesn’t have the same protection from radiation that the Earth does (our strong magnetic field). The most important thing you need to make any space mission work is passion.

Kyle Stebbing, a Year 6 teacher at Thornhill, had this to say: 'I thought it was excellent, really fascinating and Dr Lim presented wonderfully. Our students were really engaged with it too!'

Following the presentation, 34% of pupils who participated said they were more likely to do science.

If you would like to find out more about Kim, here is a link to her career profile: https://www.ralspace.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Kimberley-Lim-Systems-Engineer.aspx