Meet the Scientists at the Museum of Liverpool

Meet the Scientists was ran at the Museum of Liverpool for the first time this year. We had ten stands for families to enjoy, one of which was Furry Frontiers, ran by the Vet School's Roshan Hall. Read about his experience below.

Last weekend, the Museum of Liverpool hosted another of the popular Meet the Scientists events. The venue was fantastic, with one large room on the first floor of the museum being dedicated to the event. The room overlooked the Mersey on one side, which was resplendent in the sunlight of what felt like the last day of the summer! 

By the time of my arrival, other stands were already setting up with exciting colourful displays and activities. There was a wide range on show, from astrophysics to cancer biology and plenty more. Being a student at the vet school, I had managed to secure the services of Caspar the CPR mannequin dog for the weekend and began setting him up along with our other activities. The HLS public engagement team were very helpful in providing a whiteboard and magnetic markers for the event, which proved useful for Pin the Joint on the Dog and Horse. I was greeted while setting up by Charlie and David, two volunteers assigned to my stand - they were both fantastic throughout the day, picking up the information very quickly and being very engaging with the visitors even at times when my own energy was flagging!

After preparing our stand and ourselves by donning the glamorous MTS T-shirts, visitors started to arrive. The flow was steady initially, but rapidly picked up through the morning until we had families queuing up to visit the stand as there weren’t enough activities between them! This was encouraged by the sticker system employed by the organisers – a great idea which encouraged kids to visit every stand (at least to get a sticker from each one and fill in their sheet!). I was grateful at this point for some more help from Lewis and Jonathan, two of my vet student colleagues. We each took charge of an element of the stand during this busy time and settled straight into a well-oiled system. 

As the flow quietened down slightly, we managed to get away one at a time for some lunch. Delicious sandwiches, crisps, fruit, biscuits, squash, teas and coffees were all provided for us and gave us each a well-earned opportunity for some rest! As the afternoon went on the event became less busy, and we had a chance to engage with the visitors for longer at a time, having some great discussions with kids and parents about their animals at home and the veterinary profession in general. David was especially brilliant with Caspar the CPR dog during this time, encouraging people over with cries of “emergency! Quickly! You need to perform CPR!” 

As it hit 4pm the event came to a close, and we packed up whilst reflected on the success of the day. All in all there were around 500 visitors, who gave overwhelmingly positive feedback. It was an incredibly enjoyable day – it was very rewarding to have an opportunity to feed back our research to the public, and hopefully to let them have fun and teach them something in the process! Many thanks to the HLS PE team for making this event happen, and I’m looking forward to the next one for sure.