One of the Society’s aims is to foster an interest in science and engineering among young people. The Education Fund makes grants to local schools to support scientific projects, which have included a Greenpower racing car, an environmental garden and the Science Week event. Society members also assist with such events as the Science Week. To encourage young people to join, Society membership is free to students, who also have concessionary tickets for the Darwin Lectures.
Recent Grants include:
- Greysbrooke Primary School, Shenstone, for Science Week activities.
- Chase Terrace Technology College for equipment for a robotics building competition.
- Lichfield Library for their Science Week activities with local schools.
- Erasmus Darwin House for equipment for their British Science Day event.
The Society also organises the annual Schools Lecture for final year students at local schools. The subject, on a final-year curriculum topic, is presented, as always with the Society’s events, by a speaker eminent in the field. The 2015 lecture, the first to be held in the evening, attracted an audience of 140 students and subsequent attendances have been similar.
Recent Schools Lectures:
2018 Dr Alan Goddard, University of Aston, ‘Microbial Factories: Putting bugs to work’
2017 Dr James Brown, University of Aston, ‘Obesity and Diabetes – the truth about sugar, fat and exercise’
2016 Professor Peter Lambert, University of Aston, ‘Rise of the Superbugs’
2015 Dr Richard Bryan, University of Birmingham, ‘An Introduction to Cancer and Cancer Biology’
2013 Roma Agrawal, WSP Group, ‘STEM subjects as a route into an engineering career’ (Given in February 2014)
2012 Sir Alec Jeffreys, University of Leicester, ‘Genetic Fingerprinting, Past, Present and Future’
2011 Dr Richard Bryan, University of Birmingham, ‘Cancer: current and future treatments’
2010 Dr Ron Knott, University of Surrey, ‘Fibonacci numbers in biology’
2009 Dr Ankit Rao, University of Birmingham, ‘An overall view of cancer’
Awards
Every year the Society presents awards to students at local schools who have in their Schools’ opinion, excelled in STEM Subjects. In 2019 awards were made at
Friary School Erasmus Darwin Academy King Edward VI School Nether Stowe School The Cathedral School Chase Terrace Technology College