TWENTY five children from Potters Gate Primary School visited the University of Surrey earlier this summer to feed back on water sampling experiments they have been conducting all year as a joint venture.

The partnership between the university and Potters Gate was made possible by a Royal Society Partnership Grant, which enabled in total around 250 seven to 11 year olds to take part in a practical fieldwork research project.

With the help of Dr Kathy Pond, also a Potters Gate parent governor, and Caryn Jones from Surrey, the children have been monitoring the River Wey for the past six months at two sites - one rural and one in the centre of town - and concluded that the urban site was showing more signs of pollution than the rural one.

Representing the school, the KS2 children visited the university’s science department where they were blown away by an introduction to the world of science through an exciting range of demonstrations and hands-on activities.

Dr Pond said: “The project really engaged the children’s interest and it was great to see their enthusiasm as they reported back the results. This was a fantastic way of raising awareness of STEM subjects among primary-age children, hopefully encouraging some of them to think about careers in science later on.”