Submitted by A.S. Quenault on Tue, 07/07/2026 - 11:40
On Wednesday 1 July, we were delighted to welcome a group of Year 8 students from Peterborough to our Unit.
Following the success of taking part in the first Cambridge Biomedical Campus School Safari in June 2025, the BSU joined forces once again with AstraZeneca and Form the Future, to organise an immersive day of science and fun.
After spending the morning finding out about medicine making at AstraZeneca, 28 students and their teachers travelled across the campus to learn more about the world of biostatistics.
During their visit, they took part in a series of interactive activities on the theme of having fun with statistics, toured our research facilities, and enjoyed a real-life demonstration of how researchers use data to advance scientific discoveries. The afternoon concluded with a lively Q&A session, where the students challenged us with some thoughtful and insightful questions.
Inspiring the next generation of scientists is incredibly important. It's vital that young people see that careers in STEM are open to everyone, and that there are many different pathways into scientific research.
Karen Sandall, Teacher from Greater Peterborough UTC said:
"Our students really enjoyed getting active and seeing how statistics can be used to keep to improve our health. They had a chance to talk to people in the Unit from a range of educational backgrounds, in a real working environment, doing biostatistics research in a range of different ways. They got some great advice for the future and could see why learning maths at school is so important. It was a fantastic experience!"
A huge thank you to the students and teachers for their enthusiasm and engagement, and to Form the Future and AstraZeneca for their support in making the visit possible. Thanks also to the fantastic team of BSU researchers and students who helped to run the activities, give tours, chat with the students and demonstrate the biostatistics really can be fun - Simon White, Rajenki Das, Amy Mason, Oscar Rueda, Nikita Mozgunov, Alex Zarebski, Joseph Feest, Rebecca Brock and Martin Law.