Genius of Britain in Secondary Schools

The double DVD box set to accompany the series will be sent to every secondary school in the UK following its successful transmission on Channel 4. It is hoped that the programmes, each of which contain five or six bite size stories, will be used in classrooms to illustrate Britain’s extraordinary legacy of great scientists and to help inspire scientists of the future. The book to accompany the series will also be sent to a number of schools.

Genius of Britain series sees some of Britain’s leading scientific names - Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, James Dyson, David Attenborough, Robert Winston, Paul Nurse, Jim Al-Khalili, Kathy Sykes and Olivia Judson – tell the stories of the people behind Britain’s greatest scientists and inventors. From Isaac Newton to Frank Whittle, James Watt to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Joseph Banks to Rosalind Franklin, these are the men and women who - through blood, sweat and tears - overcame all the obstacles to find out the truth.
The initiative will be funded by the producers of the series IWC Media and distributors RDF Rights and will roll out from June 2010.
Executive producer for IWC Media Rachel Bell said:
‘We wanted to make sure that teenagers – particularly at the age when they are choosing their GCSE/Standard grade subjects – had access to the series. Behind Genius of Britain is a desire to show a generation that many of the greatest scientists didn’t go to the best schools or even come top of the class – they were just smart people who asked questions and didn’t stop until they’d found an answer.’
The Genius of Britain book is published by Harper Collins and the DVD by 4DVD. Originally aired over five consecutive nights on Channel4, Genius of Britain received rave reviews in the national press:
‘This is a superb programme that makes you feel smarter for just having watched it…’
The Times

‘This was a serious attempt to do scientific history justice, an intelligent but accessible account of the lives of men and women who had shaped the course of history, presented by men and women who had spent their lives studying them.’
The Guardian