Welcome to your EPQ!

This is a short post to welcome students from within the schools of the Northern Schools Trust to a Blog site dedicated to supporting and communicating the ideas, results and discussions, as well as providing links to historic and contemporary resources aimed at helping you to consider your own work in a wider context. The picture on the left was taken last week and is from a project aimed at exploring the microbiome of  the larvae and adult forms of a beetle called Tenebrio molitor (the larvae are called mealworms). Here, a fluorescent polymer has been used to highlight the segmentation of  the larvae as part of the project (Robert Higham, NLA).  This is an example of the ambitions we have for our students in taking the first steps into research. Our programme of Extended Project Qualifications (EPQs) is aimed at consolidating curriculum knowledge, but more importantly it provides students with the opportunity to dig deeper and think more widely. But of course not all projects are science-driven...

Joshua Hooper at the NLA has chosen to investigate the influence of Gospel Music and Spirituals on the lives of  people of colour from the early days of the Slave Trade to the present day. Exploring the contrasting  themes of  control of slave labour, the impact of religious worship alongside the the entertainment value of  Gospel Music and the Blues. Joshua's project will take the form of composition and he will finally deliver a multi-media presentation (a musical performance will accompany an image intensive narrative based on his research). 

At the UTC, students like Nour Al Tarsha are taking the first steps in designing controlled growth experiments to investigate the claims around poor antibiotic stewardship, and in particular the science underpinning the use of multiple antibiotics: a common practice in some agricultural feeding regimes. Building on previous EPQs ,and a longstanding collaboration with Farm Urban, Katie Heeley is one of the students at the UTC investigating the formulation of a natural alternative to expanded polymers for structural and insulation applications. While it is the case that all of the students are developing their projects independently, they are also encouraged to discuss their results and ideas in both informal and formal settings, to foster collaboration and to introduce students to the importance of interdisciplinarity in tackling complex problems.

One of the most important aspects of our EPQ programme projects are student-led. The first discussions centre around the generic value of an EPQ alongside an exploration of each student's personal interest and career aspirations. Project ideas then turn into "working titles" and students are asked to provide a lay-person abstract of their research topic. It is following this  stage that ideas become focused, resources requires gathering and students get underway in earnest. However, as a supervisor of many years experience, a level of flexibility is embedded in all projects until each student makes a firm commitment to proceed with their project aims.

Blogs will be posted initially by me, as I follow the first stages of the students' journeys. As students become more engaged in their projects, they will post jointly and individually, to develop their communication skills through discussions of their scientific results and ideas. By the end of the year, we hope to have co-produced a set of online resources that will provide an important platform for future students to draw on.