Congratulations to Zak (S6), who received his Gold Crest Award, managed by the British Science Association. CREST is a scheme that is set up to inspire young people to think and act as scientists and engineers. It is a nationally recognised scheme for student-led project work in the STEM subjects, designed to help young people become independent and reflective learners through student led enquiry-based project work.
Students have the opportunity to work on different types of projects on any STEM subject.
To achieve a Gold Award is a significant undertaking. Participating students must complete a project that makes an original contribution to a STEM field of study, for Gold CREST this must be at least 70 hours work, which is reviewed by an assessor, who is an expert from industry, academia or the education sector, before being awarded.
“I am very grateful to have gotten the opportunity to produce a research paper through CREST. Through the process and the many mistakes, I made along the way, I learned skills in how to conduct, plan and present research. It also helped me appreciate the medical studies and research I have seen in lectures and in the medical literature. The independence involved has developed my confidence for research I may conduct in the future at university.
From a broader standpoint, CREST encourages students to address wider issues with their experiments. I learned about inequality between different areas of the world due to vitamin deficiencies and the importance of determining how to deliver these vitamins more efficiently into the bloodstream, the subject of my research. Thank you to Ms Barnaby and Ms Stevenson for all their help and support with my CREST award.” commented Zak.
