Question: What advice could you give me to inspire me and make me think differently about science?

clairemarieroberts answered on 23 Apr 2012:

This is a great question katie174!

Let me tell you a story. When I was at school, science was a subject that everyone thought was boring. I thought that if everyone said it was boring, then they must be right!

I studied Biology, Physics and Chemistry at GCSE.

What I discovered is that most people don’t really understand exactly what ‘science’ is. For me, science is a way of pursuing knowledge. When I was at school, I tried to apply what I was learning in my science lessons to my life. At this time I was a competitive swimmer, training for a place on the GB National team.

For example, Physics allowed me to understand why swimming using a certain technique would allow me to go faster in the water. Chemistry helped me understand why my newly dyed hair went green when I got in the pool. Biology allowed me to understand why I swam better after eating pasta for dinner rather than six chicken nuggets, fries and a chocolate milkshake!

Science isn’t boring. The people at my school were wrong! Science is the foundation of the understanding how everything in the world works. The best thing about science is that YOU can determine it’s future. As a scientist you can formulate a new question about how things work, make a prediction and test it! You never know, you might discover something that nobody else has!