Kent researchers inspiring Ramsgate community to ‘Listen to Your Heart’
Emily Collins
Drop-in to a Discovery Planet community workshop between 11am and 3pm on Saturday 11 May.
Researchers from the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences and the School of Biosciences are collaborating with Ramsgate-based Discovery Planet to help local school children and the community understand the science behind their hearts and how to keep them healthy.
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Dr Emma Hargreaves, will run the ‘Listen to your Heart’ workshops between 9-11 May with support from Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Sciences, Dr Katrina Taylor and Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Dr Alex Moores. The workshops will take place in a former shop unit on Ramsgate High Street, converted to a vibrant and accessible community learning space by grassroots organisation, Discovery Planet C.I.C, through a project run in partnership with the University of Kent.
Approximately 250 school children and 100 community members are expected to attend the interactive workshops, which will see them take part in exciting, interactive activities such as:
- Making a model of a heart using water bottles to understand how pressure and valves work
- Blood typing with food dyes to discover who is the ‘Universal Donor’
- Using Just Dance and pulse oximetry to understand how our heart rates change with exercise
- Listening to the heart with a stethoscope to learn where the ‘lub-dub’ heart sounds really come from.
Dr Hargreaves said: ‘We are excited to continue to deliver our interactive workshops that help children and members of the public better understand how their hearts work and what types of activity can help keep their heart healthy. The collaboration with Discovery Planet allows us to deliver our workshops in a unique environment in the heart of Ramsgate, which helps us reach a population that may not otherwise engage with the workshops and underpinning scientific research from the University of Kent.’
The workshops on Saturday 11 May are open for anyone to drop in between 11am – 3pm, with workshops due to start on the hour every hour. More information is available on the event page.