Outreach

On Saturday the 28^th of September 2019 Emily travelled to the Lake District for the annual Eskdale Show. The Eskdale Show is considered ‘The’ show for Herdwick sheep, a hardy breed of sheep native to the Lake District. Each year a trophy is awarded at the show to the world champion Herdwick! The show brings together many of the rural communities in the Lake District and it provided a great opportunity for us to talk about some of the work we are doing at Roslin with sheep and other livestock. We took a display and exhibits developed for the Animal Genetics 100 outreach programme. These are designed to celebrate 100 years of animal genetics research in Edinburgh, and included a ‘build a sheep’ activity and some information on the sheep atlas project. Emily and the rest of the team had a really great day talking to sheep breeders, visitors to the show and meeting lots of lovely sheep!​

Related Links

Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association

Eskdale Show 

2019 marks 100 years of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh and The Roslin Institute will be celebrating this centenary by showcasing our current world-leading research with a series of events for the public. The institue has  planned an ambitious outreach programme which will take engaging activities about animal genetics as well as Roslin Institute researchers to all corners of Scotland and north of England, with a mission of engaging with rural communities.

To kickstart the celebrations, we participated in the Edinburgh Science Festival at the National Museum of Scotland on 16-18th April with hands-on activities about the secrets of animal DNA:

• The Genetic Toolbox: Where 3 difference disease outbreak scenarios were presented to the audience using the prop machine. They were then asked to choose between selective breeding, transgenic modification (GM) or gene editing in order to solve the puzzle presented.
• Words of the genome: Nursery rhymes were used in order to teach the young audience how the alphabet of the DNA builds every single organ and body part. 
• Build your own sheep: The concept of selective breeding was demonstrated using a game of dice and multiple combinations of sheep phenotypes to selectively breed for wool, milk, immune state and other visible phenotypes such as horn and eye colour.  

Parents and children of appropriate age were involved throughout the day.

Emily was interviewed by Science Communication Intern at The Roslin Institute Maggie Szymanska about how she investigates the genes of farm animals to understand how they control immunity, productivity and adaptation to the environment.

'Meet our Scientists' - Dr Emily Clark on genes with a function

Dr Emily Clark is a Chancellor's Fellow at The Roslin Institute. In 2018 she made a video to talk about these Fellowships, how they're helping her advance her career and the benefits of working at the Institute.

Chancellor's and Career Track Fellowships at The Roslin Institute - Emily Clark