BIG hearted youngsters from Aberdour Primary did some fast fundraising to help the efforts of a Dalgety Bay-based scientist.

Larissa Slaney is doing a PhD in Candidate Life Sciences and her project, Fit Cheetahs, seeks to find a non-invasive way to help establish if cheetahs are related, which will aid efforts to increase their diversity.

After talking to the school’s pupil council, she spoke about her work at assembly and held a Fit Cheetah day on Thursday to help raise money for research.

Headteacher Kate Whiteley said the children had been delighted to get involved: “They decided that they definitely wanted to support the project.

“They had so much fun and were getting their face painted and dressed up in orange and black and painting plaster casts of cheetah’s footprints as well. They had a ball and it was a lot of fun.

“We have really loved promoting Larissa and her work. She is a female, she is a scientist and is developing a technique that is useful to the future of the planet. That is our whole STEM agenda – she is a great role model.”

Larissa told the Press: “It is so nice to see how interested the children are in cheetah conservation. My talk covered different topics surrounding cheetah biology, conservation and my research, and the kids were really interested, asked lots of questions and came up with their own ideas of how to get involved in cheetah conservation – leading to this amazing fundraiser!

“This is self funded and so far I have put all my savings, about £12,000, into this, and I am getting to the stage where I could do with a bit of help.

“The idea of science crowd funding is for the scientist to communicate their research to the public and for the public to then decide whether to back the project.”

To support Larissa’s research, or find out more about her project, go to crowd.science/campaigns/cheetahs.