The Scottish Microscopy Society has paired with the Royal Microscopy Society to distribute their Microscopy Activity Kits all over Scotland! Below you can read more about how these kits have already been a great success at various outreach events. For more details on what these kits contain, please check out the RMS website. If you’d like to book a kit for an event in Scotland, please drop us an email or use the contact form at the bottom of the page.
Paracetamol when you’ve got a headache. Antibiotics to treat an infection. Antacids to relieve heartburn. Everyone uses drugs at some point in their lives. But how do they work? And how are new drugs discovered in the first place? These were some of the questions central to Drug Lab, a workshop at the Heriot-Watt University Family Fun Day, as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival. This workshop took visitors on the fascinating journey of drug development through a series of small activities and demonstrations, ranging from microscopy to microfluidics.
Boy Van Basten, a PhD student and member of the Postgraduate Society within the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Bioengineering and Biophysics (PoBBBs) at Heriot-Watt University, ran a workshop with fellow students for the general public as part of the Heriot-Watt Family Day, 2019. This brought in thousands of people from Edinburgh and beyond to see what kind of research is taking place at Heriot-Watt.
In 2019 May Fest celebrated its 7th year with its biggest programme to date. Debbie Wilkinson and Kevin Mackenzie from the Microscopy and Histology Core Facility at the University of Aberdeen took part in the Schools’ programme and ran a workshop called “Explore the Hidden World”, allowing school children to explore a wide range of everyday objects in close-up using a selection of microscopes from the kit provided by the RMS. The programme attracted more than 600 children from 12 primary schools located in Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire.
In addition to this, Debbie and Kevin also took part in the fantastic Hall of Mayhem on the Sunday, with over 1,580 people visiting the drop-in sessions making it the busiest year to date. Families were able to use the RMS Microscopy Kit to look at a variety of samples in much more detail.
Contact name: James Streetley
Email: scmi@glasgow.ac.uk
Contact number: 01413304025
Institute: Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology
Facility address: Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh, Michael Swann Building, Kings Buildings, Max Born Crescent, EDINBURGH EH9 3BF
Microscopes available: Thermo Fisher Scientific Tecnai F20 (cryo-)TEM
Image analysis: Single-particle data processing software, Avizo