LOCAL school pupils are getting an amazing opportunity to be inspired by the country’s current world-beating scientists.

BBC Scotland Learning and the Glasgow Science Centre are hosting a day of talks and activities for Scottish schoolchildren on May 8 - in order to look at the future.

Leading scientists will talk about robots, electric cars and holidays on Mars to change our lives across everything from energy to transport, from jobs to health.

The Future and Me! event, at the Science Centre, is being hosted by TV science and adventure presenter Dallas Campbell, who will be speaking to Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and a Judge on Robot Wars.

Dallas will also talk to Professor Lesley Yellowlees, who was the first ever female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and geneticist Professor Kevin O’Dell, from Glasgow University.

In attendance at the event will be more than 560 children from school across the central belt, including St Denis Primary School, Shawlands Academy, Knightswood Secondary, St Margaret Mary’s Secondary, Whitehill Secondary and St Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Glasgow.

Pupils at other local schools can also take part by watching the talks live on bbc.co.uk/labscotland at 11.20am.

BBC Scotland Learning is looking for schools to submit their best ideas about life in the future – either written or on film – for possible inclusion in an animation to be showcased later in the year.

Said Dallas: “We want you to think about what job you will you be doing - or will you have lots of jobs? How will you get about? Drones? Electric cars? Will we all be living to 110? What diseases will be cured? Maybe we'll have robots helping us around the house? Will we go on holiday to the moon or Mars? What type of gadgets will be using? What type of energy will we be using?

“Fifty years ago, using the internet every day and having a mobile phone was unheard of. Today we couldn't live without them. So what will life be like in 50 or even 100 years' time?

“Scientists every day are discovering new possibilities - imagine what life will be like and send us your best ideas - we'd like to make them into an animation to showcase later in 2017 as the BBC discovers tomorrow's world.”

* Details are available at bbc.co.uk/labscotland. Ideas have to be submitted by Friday June 16.