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Introducing
Lecturers from the science departments of the University of Surrey, these Case
Studies will tell you about what we do, and explain how science works at
universities all over the country. They fit perfectly with the requirements
of the Ideas and Evidence element of the GCSE Balanced science. They cover
issues like how our work is peer reviewed and published in journals, how
science is portrayed in the media, and how funding makes a difference to our
work. Each study shows how closely our work links to the GCSE science
specifications, and there is a set of questions accompanying each study to
check what the students have understood, and to help them think about the
different issues raised. |
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Judy talks about diet and how the food a person eats can affect their health.
She also discusses a project designed to help women have heathier babies. |
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Linda Morgan discovers how different foods affect our the hormones
in our digestive systems. She researches eating patterns and is trying to find out why society in general is getting fatter. |
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Lesley's case study looks at the
effect of lifestyle factors on personal health, the body's reaction to
infections and diseases, the composition of blood, the importance of the
immune system, how public opinion can be useful to scientists looking for
investment into their research, and looks at the media's presentation of
issues like AIDS and HIV. |
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Helen Truby is an expert in nutrition, health and dietetics.
She ran the scientific study behind the BBC programme Diet Trials and talks about the effects of four different
diets and dealing with the media. |
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From the plastic in your
toothbrush to the nylon in your clothes, we all use synthetic materials every
day. John Hay is a materials chemist and he talks about inventing new materials with desirable properties.
He discusses polymers, nanoparticle technology and his work on fire retardant materials. |
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In 2002, across Western
Europe, 408 billion cubic metres of natural gas were burned to heat our
homes. Peter Slater is part of a team developing fuel cells which, one day, could enable
each home to have its own supply of heat and electricity. |
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Saiful's
case study is about using specialists in different areas in a team, to all
solve a single problem, about how not all laboratory work is "white
coat and goggles". He talks about creating more efficient batteries and about the usefulness of computer simulation
alongside experiments. He also criticises the media's negative approach to
the few scientific stories they present. |
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Dave's case study looks at flame tests, colour
(in terms of waves) and tells us how difficult it is to define and measure a colour. |
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Jim's case study looks at atomic
structure, (including differences between elements), big bang theory, the
role of computer simulations in scientific experiment, and the practice of presenting
new ideas to the scientific community. |
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Joe's
case study talks about molecular structures and the wonderful properties of polymers. He also discusses
the funding and motivations of some scientific research and negative media
presentation of useful scientific work. |
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Shyama's case study takes a look
at X-rays, and their use in medicine, reliability of scientific equipment in
the medical industry, and the way in which motherhood is viewed from the
professional woman, and scientist's point of view. |
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Paddy’s case study looks at isotopes, the
periodic table, gamma rays (with reference to both uses and dangers), and the
scientific community’s way of monitoring itself. |
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Rebecca develops mathematical models to work out why things happen. She
has had several pieces of work presented in the media, including a car-parking formula, and
has researched how a school's performance would be affected by publishing league tables which was
reported in the media.
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Philip's case study
looks at the use of the word frequency, how mathematics is useful when
breaking coded messages, how chaos theory is relevant to real life, and how computer
simulations repeated thousands of times very quickly are more useful for
investigating chaos than individual experiments, which are much slower. |
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Andrew's case study points out the disadvantages of internet search engines (and similar programs), and describes how a truly intelligent machine is necessary to fulfil our needs in terms of specific differences in language that ordinary search engines have problems differentiating between, and looks at the ethics of having such a machine. |
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Adrian’s case study
looks at Newton's laws of motion, and how they are relevant to artificial
images of motion (e.g. Lara Croft), looks at how changing the gravitational
field strength affects the way objects fall, and the moral/social issue of
being able to easily and effectively alter photographs. |
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Martin Unwin works at Surrey Satellite Technology
Ltd. He works with engineers from around the world to design and build microsatellites. He talks about
the testing of satellites and his personal project which involves a global positioning system to
monitor accurately the position of a satellite in orbit. |
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Karen's case study looks at the construction of a
cathode ray, insulators, and their uses, changing public opinion to do with
environmental issues, including ozone harming compounds, she also looks at
LEDs and how scientists compare theories and results viz. scientific
journals. |
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Steve's case study examines unusual uses of super
strong polymers and their drawbacks. He looks at the elasticity of polymers and how plastics in different structures have
different properties. |
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These case studies
were prepared by Averil MacDonald. Thanks also to Alexa Briggs (Warwick
University), Meg Blight, Stephanie Brooks (Guildford High School for Girls),
and Joe Jordan (Hurtwood House School). Questions or Queries? Contact me: Dr Dave Faux Physics Department University of Surrey Guildford Surrey GU2 7XH |
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