The Prince Philip Award and Marsh Prize 2008

• to encourage students to see biology as a relevant and exciting field of study
• to encourage students to make the step from learning to investigation
• to recognise excellence and contribution to science.

The individual winner receives a certificate and a monetary award.

The winner’s school/college is given a medal and certificate.

Prizes of books or a certificate may be awarded to a runner-up if their entry deserves commendation.

Prince Philip Award project guidelines (68 KB)

Your entry should be an account of original practical work (about 3000 words in length) along with any relevant illustrations, graphs and tables, involving some aspect of animal biology, e.g. behaviour, physiology or ecology. You should identify one or two simple problems to solve or 'study areas' to concentrate on, rather than try to 'discover everything' about the animals being investigated.

Your introduction should clearly state why the project was undertaken and give a brief account of any background reading.

Any experimental results should be replicated where possible and appropriate controls used. Your interpretation and discussion of results should include consideration of the limitations of the work undertaken.

Presentation

Your study should be presented in the customary way in which scientific work is published; generic and specific names should be underlined or italicised; graphs should be fully labelled and the units given.

The nature and the extent of any help received should be specified; published material should also be acknowledged and references given.

Long tables of results and their statistical treatment should be included in the appendices, not in the main work.

The work should be ordered and legible and presented in a secure binding. Number all pages please.

Rules

The entry shall be an account of practical work involving some aspect or animal biology, e.g. behaviour, physiology or ecology. It should be of the order of 3,000 words and amply illustrated, and should be of a standard comparable with A-level projects or higher.

Entrants must be under 19 years of age on 1st January of the year of entry and must be/have been pupils of a school/college in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Head teachers and senior science staff are asked to co-operate by selecting entries of an appropriate standard. An entry may be the work of one individual or a joint project from not more than two pupils.

Entries must be received by 30 November 2008

Each entry must be accompanied by a letter from the Head Teacher giving:

• the pupil's full name
• the pupil's address
• the pupil's date of birth
• the name and address of the school/college
• full details of the nature and extent of any assistance given to the pupil

Entries must be sent to:

The Secretary of the Awards Committee
Zoological Society of London
Regent’s Park,
London
NW1 4RY

Judging

Entries will be judged by a panel of scientists and education officers and marked on: accuracy of observation; planning, interpretation; significance of conclusions; style of writing and neatness of presentation.

The pupils submitting winning entries will be announced early in 2009 and the Prince Philip Award and Marsh Prize will be presented to the winning student in June 2009 at the annual ZSL Awards Ceremony.

All entries will be returned to candidates together with feedback on the winning entry.