Dear Janet, How do you become a Marine Biologist?

Ryan from Over Hall Community School

When Ryan, aged 10, wrote to Janet Beer, University of Liverpool’s Vice-Chancellor, asking, ‘How do you become a Marine Biologist?’ he received more than a letter of explanation in response.

Ryan and his classmates, from Over Hall Community School in Winsford, were invited by the Widening Participation and Outreach team for a special visit to the University to learn first-hand about marine biology.

Over 40 children attended the University’s Marine, Ecology and Oceans Society and the Marine Biology students explained what marine biology is, the different sorts of marine animals that lived in Liverpool Bay and how to become a Marine Biologist.

Handling live marine animals

The children thoroughly enjoyed their visit, especially becoming scientists and wearing lab coats and gloves so that they could handle live marine animals from the River Mersey. They discovered how the animals live, their anatomy and how one small animal, the mussel, made a big difference helping to clean the Liverpool Docks.

Working in teams, the class produced colourful posters for their school about different families of marine organisms.  The day’s session ended with a quiz to test their new-found marine knowledge.

The children then learnt more generally about life at University, even getting to try on graduation caps and gowns.

Fantastic

The visit was organised by the Widening Participation and Outreach team and Central Teaching Labs (CTL) and all of the talks, demonstrations and activities were delivered by the students from the University’s Marine, Ecology and Oceans Society.

Emily Walsh from the Widening Participation and Outreach team, said: “It is fantastic to have a young person so determined to find out more about his future career that he wrote in to the Vice Chancellor.

“We were thrilled to be able to organise a visit for this school who will thoroughly benefit from their work with the CTL.”

To see a copy of Ryan’s letter please click here.

For more information about Ecology and Marine Biology please click here.

For more information about the University’s Widening Participation please click here.