Southampton Science and Engineering Festival and Global Village

Last weekend I spent my Saturday helping out at one of the stalls for the University’s annual Southampton Science and Engineering Festival. The day is a great way for members of the public, both adults and children, to come and visit the University, learn about what research the University is undertaking, why it is important and how it has an impact on our daily lives. For the kids there were also a number of activities at the different stalls which they could get involved in. For example, at the stall I was based at - which was about the research the University is doing around breeding better varieties of lettuce for traits such as longer shelf life and drought resistance - kids were able to collect different types of lettuce seeds to take home and grow for themselves. We also had a microscope based at our stall which they could have a go at using. It was great to see so many people with an interest in science visiting the University and so many kids curious about science and keen to get involved in the different activities. The day was a great opportunity for me to practice my science communication skills.
 

Here’s the stall I was helping out with during the day. 

The boards behind me helped explain how breeding better varieties of lettuce tied into the bigger picture of food security and needing to feed a growing population under climate change.

During the day we were also given a free lunch for helping out (which is always nice!) and some free time to go and check out the some of the other stalls. I was based in the Biology section but there were also stalls from many other research areas including Engineering, Medicine, Psychology, Physics and Archaeology.

Last Tuesday AIESEC Southampton and SUSU’s International Committee organised an event named Global Village which was held in the Students’ Union. The event allowed the different cultural societies to represent their country. There were stalls representing a number of different countries including Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Pakistan, Japan, the Philippines, Brazil and Sri-Lanka. Each stall had some of their national cuisine which you could taste, some stalls had traditional clothing which you could try on, others had games and there were also performances from each society during the day! It was a lot of fun and everyone was really friendly. My friend and I even went around the stalls twice, the food was really good!

Some of the super friendly girls from the Malaysian Students Association Southampton society, two of whom I know through International student meetings. 

Finally, I’ve just finished my last week of lectures before the Easter break. Time is passing by unbelievably quickly and I can’t believe how close graduation is. In any case, this year I won’t be heading back to Sweden over the break as my family has now moved back to Australia. This is probably a good thing as I really need to focus during this break to finish writing my dissertation while also preparing for my final exams. However, I know I’ll still find some exciting things to do in Southampton over the next four weeks of the Easter break.

Kristin