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Chemical Engineering joins UCL 2021 Widening Participation Summer School
25 August 2021
The UCL Department of Chemical Engineering was involved with the UCL 2021 Widening Participation Summer School which took place online over 5 days at the end of July. The year 12 (S5 Scotland / Year 13 Northern Ireland) participants joined from across the UK and were from groups currently underrepresented in Higher Education. The summer school aimed to help prospective students to realise their aspirations, feel part of the UCL community and gain an understanding of Chemical Engineering at degree level. The programme involved a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous activities organised by both the chemical engineering department and the UCL central WP team. Led by Dr Isobel Mackay and Dr Javier Fernandez-Garcia the department activities included workshops on reactors and distillation from PhD Students Solomon Bawa and Zahra Rana. Research Fellow Katerina Tsatse demonstrated the use of computer software to create simulations of chemical processes.
Participants were asked the same questions at the beginning and at the end of the summer school and we could see the differences in their more elaborated answers at the end of the summer school. They gained new perspectives and ideas about what Chemical Engineering is and how it helps the real world and our society.
Participants also had the opportunity to get involved with experiments at home, the first was an exploration of membrane filtration with Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering (CNIE) PhD students Halan Mohamed and Nidhi Kapil. Isobel and Javier then finished the week with a “kitchen chemistry” experiment investigating how common soft drinks can affect human health.
Participants worked in teams to develop an experimental plan, collect and analyse data before communicating the research to the group via a poster presentation. The standard of the presentations was very high and the students worked incredibly well in their teams.
As well as social activities with other departments the student benefitted from a presentation from our UG Programme Admissions Tutor, Dr Federico Galvanin and Study Abroad Tutor, Dr Alex Rettie.