Nottingham South MP to visit Summer Scientists Week

During her visit, Ms Greenwood will be given a tour of the research studies and activities and will be meeting some of the researchers, student volunteers, parents and children who are involved.

Lillian Greenwood said: “Summer Scientist Week is a fantastic opportunity for children from across the city to learn about science in a fun and interactive environment.  I’m delighted that the School of Psychology has invited me along to meet everyone involved and I look forward to seeing how the children attending are inspired by the projects on offer.”

During the week, not only are children given an interactive introduction to what psychology is all about, but parents are also able to learn about the most recent research carried out by the University’s School of Psychology.

The children, aged from 4 to 11 years, will be invited to take part in a number of research projects which are taking place during the week. The research aims to increase our understanding of child development and learning.

Lucy Cragg, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychology and Project Manager of Summer Scientist Week said: “Summer Scientist Week aims to teach children about the mind and brain through engaging and hands-on activities. As well as being fun for the kids, the games they take part in are helping us to understand how growing minds develop, and from this, how best they can learn.”

Some of the research projects include:

• a ‘Mix and Match’ game investigating how the ability to ignore different kinds of distractions develop;
• a ‘What’s in the box?’ game exploring how and why children decide what things they want to direct their attention towards;
• a ‘Houston, we have a problem!’ game which examines whether the ability to listen in noisy environments changes with age;
• a ‘Talk to Martians!’ game which studies why speech sounds are important in order for us to understand other people; game which studies why speech sounds are important in order for us to understand other people;
• a ‘Guess the Mood’ game which aims to find out how social abilities, such as eye contact and understanding the feelings of others, develop in children, and whether they relate to their social understanding;
• and finally a ‘What’s That Word?’ game which will give an idea of the children’s general language skills and will help the researchers to better understand their performance in all of the games.

The 2013 Summer Scientist Week takes place from 14^th–16^th and 19^th–21^st August and will be held in the Exchange Building on Jubilee Campus. This year’s event is now fully booked, but to register your interest for next year please email the Summer Scientist team: summerscientist@nottingham.ac.uk. You can also visit their website at www.summerscientist.org.

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