On Monday 6 February, A Level students were privileged to go on a ‘behind the scenes tour’ of the Natural History Museum in London.

At the beginning of the day, students were divided into two groups. One toured a molecular biology laboratory and saw the procedures and equipment used in DNA analysis, whilst the other group met a botanical scientist, who allowed the students to see some of Charles Darwin’s original plant samples from the 1830s. They were also shown plant pressings taken by The Reverend Adam Buddle in the 16^th century.

After meeting these two interesting scientists, students then took part in ‘Nature Live’ - an interactive session with a palaeontologist, who talked about her work with fossil fish from the Gogo region of Australia, during which the students asked many significant questions.

After this session, there was a taxonomy workshop, where students were given the difficult task of sorting different shells based on phylum, class etc. Students also had the chance to visit part of the Spirit Collection not on public view. This is a room where animals were preserved in formaldehyde, including an 8m long giant squid and further specimens collected by Darwin on his voyage with the Beagle! Over the course of the day, students learnt many practical and vital applications of science, especially taxonomy, greatly improving their scientific knowledge and giving them an insight as to the many diverse and varied careers that are available in science.

Tobias Condron

Year 13