Researchers from HPRU in HCAI and AMR launched the pilot of the Antimicrobial Citizen Engagement (ACE) project at Manorfield Primary school, Tower Hamlets in October.
By Rakhee Parmar, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU)
The Antimicrobial Citizen Engagement (ACE) project is a newly launched science citizen engagement project developed by HPRU to engage and involve young people in schools in gathering research information to help researchers tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Dr Nina Zhu, Rishabh Jain, and Oskar Fraser-Krauss piloted the ACE project at Manorfield Primary school in London with budding scientists from Year 6. They delivered a lesson on AMR explaining resistance with a hands-on activity Build a Bug, as well introducing the pupils to citizen science and how they can play a role to help better understand behaviours and usage of antibiotics through their involvement in our project.
The Year 6 pupils carried out a short survey with known adult family, neighbours and friends on how they accessed and disposed of antibiotics. Feedback from the science lead at the school was that:
“…pupils were excited to learn about antimicrobials but especially the chance to gather real data themselves from people they know. The project really empowered many of them – many asking for more surveys to complete and even walking around the school during their lunchtime with a clipboard to collect as many responses as possible”.
The young citizen scientists returned over 190 completed surveys in just under a month.
HPRU will return to Manorfield Primary School to present the data that the children collected and plan to roll out the pilot to a secondary school in London over World AMR Awareness Week as well as more schools in the new year.
Also in October, HPRU researchers delivered a Hand Hygiene lesson linked to the curriculum to Year 2 pupils at Manorfield Primary school. The lessons led by Amrita Ghataure, Frank Williams and Greta Sveikauskaite aimed to help the 6-year-old pupils understand that effective hand washing is important to minimise the risk of infection from potentially harmful bacteria.
Children carried out a simple experiment using UV glow gel to observe how bacteria can spread from person to person simply by shaking each other’s hands. Pupils enjoyed carrying out the experiment and were shown how to wash their hands correctly afterwards by HPRU researchers.