Budding young scientists from Portsmouth High School will help choose the winner of this year’s Royal Society Prizes for Science Books Junior Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for science writing.

In an innovative judging process, The Royal Society has handed the judging of the Junior Prize 2007 winner to UK school children. The pupils from Portsmouth High School will be among over one thousand children from schools across the UK who will help choose a winning science book with the eventual winner being announced at a prestigious ceremony at the Royal Society on 15 May.

Each Junior judging panel, including pupils form Portsmouth High School, will choose a winner from six shortlisted books and submit their vote. The votes are then collated by Ecsite-uk (the UK network of science centres and museums) and the book with the most votes will win the prize.

A diverse range of books, covering topics as broad as Electricity, Natural Disasters and Space are competing for the £10,000 prize money for the winning author. A panel of adult judges, chaired by award-winning author Eleanor Updale, chose the shortlist of six books and they are fascinated to find out which one the young people will choose as the overall winner.

Roma Daniels-Byng, a Year 8 pupil from Portsmouth High School, said “The six books on the shortlist are all brilliant and we are really enjoying judging and reading each of them.”

Fellow classmate Nicola Argent added “There are twelve people in our group and everyone will have a chance to air their views so I expect there will be a lot of lively debate when it comes to choosing our winning entry! We all have different ideas and thoughts at the moment.“

Christine Williams, Head of Physics at the school said “The pupils are all really excited about being involved and helping to select the winning book; it is a great opportunity for them to read around the subject and understand that science books can be fun as well as informative. The pupils have appointed a chair for their judging panel who will lead the discussions about the books, this itself is a great experience, as the pupils will have to debate, lead discussions, air their views and come to a unanimous decision”

This is the second year in a row that Portsmouth High School pupils have been involved in the Competition which celebrates the very best of science writing for children and young adults. The pupils will judge the books on how easy they are to read; whether the layout is helpful and well organised; how engaging and interesting the book is and how it sets itself apart from the rest of the books on the shortlist.