Collaboration to inspire future Loughborough Scientists.Fourteen year-old students from a local school attended workshops for some ‘hands on’ chemistry experiments at Loughborough University.In one topical experiment, the 80 students from Garendon High School, Loughborough, made a solar cell and generated electricity. And in a second workshop they made pigments and used them to paint a mural and decorate mugs.The event held on Thursday March 29th was designed to inspire the next generation of scientists.Staff from Loughborough’s medicines research company AstraZeneca played a key role in making the event happen.The workshops were the first collaboration between AstraZeneca’s Research and Development site in Bakewell Road, the school and the university’s Chemistry Department.AstraZeneca has strong links with the High School, one of a number of local schools and colleges that each have a dedicated contact, and recently hosted a visit to the site’s laboratories for the school.The idea for the chemistry event came from an approach by AstraZeneca’s Dave Cladingboel, an associate principal scientist in the Process R&D department and the function contact for the High School, to David Worrall, a university lecturer in physical chemistry.Dave had an idea for a demonstration lecture, that developed with David Worrall into a full programme. Dr Worrall led the photoelectrochemical solar cell experiment while his colleague, inorganic chemistry lecturer Dr Sandie Dann led the paint workshop. Materials and giveaways for this workshop were funded by the EPSRC PPA award ‘Creating a Colourful Life’. Dave Cladingboel said: “It was great for the children to be able to do some exciting experiments in huge laboratories in academia, rather then their classrooms, and hopefully it will inspire some of them to consider science subjects at GCSE and perhaps go on to a career in science.”Dave and other staff volunteers helped out on the day.Dr Worrall said: “AstraZeneca was able to put us in touch with Tim Baker, the Head of Science at Garendon, who was keen for this to happen.“AstraZeneca have been very supportive, as well as providing volunteers to supervise, they facilitated meetings between us and made organising an event such as this much easier.”He added: “Pupils tend to get turned off science between Year 7 and Year 9 and we want to keep that momentum going in schools by giving them opportunities to come out of school for some fun hands on experiments.”