Ditch the memories of high school biology class, and take a second look at the British Council's Beautiful Science initiative FameLab, in which young scientists from around Bulgaria will face off – in English – in presenting their favourite scientific topics.

The first heat of the competition this year will be held in Sofia, on March 30 2009 in the Aula of Sofia University, followed by an April 4 round in Varna (Varna Technical University) and Plovdiv (Plovdiv University) on April 11. The top presenter from each heat will then participate in the national final in Sofia (Theatre Sofia) on May 11, with the Bulgarian winner going on to the June 6 international final in Cheltenham, England, part of the Cheltenham Science Festival.

The goal of FameLab, which was first organised by the British Council in 2005, is to encourage scientists between the ages of 18 and 35 to step outside the laboratory and present their passion in a format that is understandable – and interesting – to the general public. It comes as part of the British Council's Beautiful Science project, which encompasses the United Kingdom and nine countries from South Eastern Europe; in Bulgaria, FameLab takes place in partnership with the Ministry of Education.

In order to bring some of this expertise to the British Council Bulgaria students themselves, Jamie Mann, corporate training manager at the council in Sofia, recently invited two past FameLab participants to talk to some classes.

When Bozhidar Stefanov came on March 13, nanoparticles met the iPod Nano. Stefanov is a student of computational chemistry at Sofia University, a student researcher at the university's nanotechnology lab and winner of the sponsor's prize in Bulgaria's edition of FameLab 2008 – and, he's passionate about what he does.

His first stop was a class of 5th to 8th-grade students, taught by Brian Stewart. ("I'm an art school graduate," Stewart told The Sofia Echo. "I don't know anything about science.)

Issues addressed ranged from how nanoparticles can be used to help fight cancer (they "lock on" to free-floating cancer cells, and can then be extracted, for instance), to their nec plus ultra capabilities in hi-tech speaker systems. Interspersing this were experiments (what happens when a strip of magnesium is lit?), and requests by the students to again see Stefanov's desktop wallpaper of a hottie science-nerd chick. He instead showed them magnified images of a housefly. Eww.

Students had been assigned homework of coming up with questions to ask Stefanov.

Christian D, a 5th grader who said that he learnt his English starting in 1st grade while a pupil at the American Community School in Beirut, sat through Stefanov's talk spellbound. His questions, which were in perfect English and which he said he came up with by himself, were of the genre "how does nanotechnology help the human body, and the world?" and "who invented them?" and "how many kinds of liquids are there?". Other pupils were not so inspired: "Bozhidar already answered my questions."

Stefanov's second class of the day was a group of younger children, and both he and they were more at ease.

This past week, Mann invited a second science guest – a nutritionist. "She talked about healthy eating and food; the students were really into it, and she provided some useful information," he said.

Bulgarian contenders in FameLab 2009 come from the Technical University in Sofia, Sofia University, the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, the University for Chemical Technology and Metallurgy in Sofia, the Institute for Forage Crops in Plevin, the National Astronomical Observatory in Rozhen and various institutes at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN), according to a March 27 press release from the British Council.

Presentations are limited to three minutes and are evaluated by a jury comprised of scientists – Ivailo Slavov, a physicist and meteorologist at TV-MET, and Georgi Baldjiev, a biologist at the BAN Institute for Botanics and a FameLab 2007 awardee – and media experts – Iren Fileva, a senior editor at Bulgarian National Radio's Hristo Botev Programme, and Svetlana Belcheva, PR manager of Netinfo. The areas of evaluation are contents (scientific veracity), accessibility (if it is understandable to non-scientists) and presentation (communicativeness with the public).

Actress Angelina Slavova will be the master of ceremonies. Attendance at FameLab is open to the public.