Second‑year Biomedical Sciences student Izzie Platt shares her experience taking part in Marvellous Medicine, a public engagement event that brought hundreds of children from across the North West and Wales together to explore how medicines are discovered.
I recently took part in a public engagement event series organised by Dr Laura Randle from the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, which showed me how important it is to educate young people about science. Running over consecutive Saturdays, the ‘Marvellous Medicine’ sessions focused on the field of drug discovery and development. The events were very well attended and we welcomed approximately 600 Rainbows, Brownies, Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Rangers from across the North West and Wales.
Alongside my fellow student Sophie Dennis, I’d been tasked with developing an engaging session on the topic of new drug targets. It needed to be roughly 30 minutes and accessible for 5-10-year-olds – not an easy feat! We brainstormed and planned out exactly what we wanted to do before creating the resources and writing a risk assessment. We split the session into two parts. The first half used Lego to represent the many combinations of medicines that can be created to target different receptors in the body. The second part highlighted medicinal plants and their different properties.
Each child first built a structure with eight different pieces of Lego then we gave them a template in which to fit their piece through. Not without some frustration, they attempted to fit their structures through the templates, some successfully but most not. We got the children to amend their Lego builds to make them specific to the template. Through this, we were able to demonstrate that scientists make many different combinations of medicines. Often the combinations don’t work and yet we constantly rebuild and keep trying.
For the second half of the session, we had set up posters around the room, which highlighted different medicinal plants and their properties. Alongside there were samples of plant extracts for the children to smell (with the exception of foxgloves!), making it a sensory experience. The children then labelled a wooden girl guide model where on the body they thought the medicine would target. They loved this activity and were fascinated by the ideas of using different parts of plants to treat different symptoms, such as Aloe Vera for sunburn.
The children were so enthusiastic about every activity, never being afraid to ask any questions. Overall, I’m glad I took part. I’ve honed my skills, particularly in communication, teamwork and public speaking, and look forward to doing it again next year!