In February half term, 24 lower sixth students visited San Diego in California for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference.

After a gruelling journey involving 11 hours of flying over two flights, buses and some walking, we arrived at our hostel in the middle of the city’s historic “gaslamp quarter”, during the initial stages of San Diego’s illustrious Mardi Gras parade – certainly an unplanned and interesting way to begin a visit to one the USA’s more Latin cities.

The first day there was spent mainly resting and adjusting to the new time zone. After a meeting at 10am the day was spent primarily at Balboa park, the largest inner city park in the US. It is here that the bulk of the city’s cultural sights, museums and the world famous bastion of conservation biology, San Diego Zoo, are located. Pupils spent the day visiting areas of interest.

On the second day, we visited the Zoological Society of San Diego’s research institute, located in the grounds of the Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, 30 miles outside the city centre. Here we had a guided tour of the laboratories of the institute; visited the “frozen ark” a huge collection of the genetic material from 700 endangered species stored in liquid nitrogen; met some current recipients of research efforts – the mountain yellow-legged frogs – a species on the brink with only circa 200 individuals left; and met some of the scientists currently working to conserve species on the brink of extinction. We also had a lecture on the global amphibian decline, its causes, and the reasons why we should worry about it, followed by a session of practical laboratory work, where the pupils undertook some genetic analyses used to test for the presence of Chytrid fungus, a pathogen that is currently decimating world amphibian populations.

On the third day the main focus of the trip began - the conference. During the mornings and afternoons of the next three and half days pupils attended scientific symposiums of their choice with lectures as far ranging from the science of superheroes and particle physics to new advances in personalised medicine using genetic technology and coastal variation to new research in the fields of sleep studies and reproductive technologies. The symposia broadly covered subjects from Mathematics, Geography, Design, Psychology, Engineering, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, with no real borders between them. It was interesting and exhilarating to see new advances and research from the cutting edge of science being presented and discussed as well as awakening to the fact that science in the real world is not compartmentalised. Instead all areas of the broad discipline are used to complement and uplift each other and successful research relies on successful collaborations between different specialists.

In addition to the symposia two evening lectures were attended, Including one given by Carol W. Greider, the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, about her work on telomeres.

On top of all this hard work we also found time to kick back. One evening we had the chance to watch a basketball match and we even found time on the final afternoon for a dip in the Pacific Ocean.

All in all a successful and hugely rewarding trip.