National Science and Engineering Week
For those who don’t know it is National Science and Engineering Week this week and as usual the science departments from the university have got together and put on a 3 day hands-on exhibition for local school children. As well as having over 1000 primary school children through the doors throughout the week they also open the exhibition to the public on the Wednesday afternoon so I took Morgan along with a couple of his friends.
The theme for this year is Our World in Motion and there was a huge variety of hands of activities for them to have a go at. We were greeted at the entrance by a racing car and inside they had a chance to see how far they could jump and how quickly they could kick a football, courtesy of Sports and Exercise Science. They had a go on a mechanical horse, made a volcanic eruption, did a timed lap with a remote controlled car, handled snakes, tortoises and giant millipedes and identified poo from different animals from tortoises to monkeys and dinosaurs.
As usual they always surprise me by what they enjoy the most and they spent loads of time on the stand where they could make giant bubbles with them inside them. All of them enjoyed making the volcanic eruption and of course seeing K9 as part of the Psychics display was a big bonus.
Most of the stands are run by students from the university and they do a great job and getting the kids interested and explaining what is going on. We spent 2 hours there and I had to drag the boys away as they were closing. It’s all free and an excellent way to get kids interested in science without them realising.
We’re looking forward to next year now, I wonder what the theme will be?
The pictures aren’t very good as I only had my mobile phone but you can see they were having fun!
