University to celebrate 50 years of Human Spaceflight at Scottish Space School
A lecture featuring some of the world’s leading figures in space travel will be the highlight of this year’s Scottish Space School at the University of Strathclyde.
Now in its tenth year, the space school, which will run between June 12 – 17, gives 100 secondary school pupils the opportunity to attend a week-long residential course, with lectures, labs and workshops delivered by leading academics and researchers at the University’s Faculty of Engineering.
Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Artsebarsky will be joined by NASA astronaut Alvin Drew and Spacecrafts Systems Engineer Amber Gell to offer the students a unique insight into the space industry before delivering presentations at the public lecture on Wednesday 15 June at 7pm in the University’s John Anderson Building.
Alvin and Amber will also visit Alloway Primary School and Uddingston Grammar School, and take part in a live Q&A session with 4000 pupils from 80 primary schools across Scotland via Learning and Teaching Scotland’s GLOWmeet facility.
Gordon McVie, Outreach Co-ordinator for the Department of Electronic Engineering,said: “The Scottish Space School is unique to the University of Strathclyde and provides young people from all over the country with a fantastic opportunity to learn from the world’s top astronauts and engineers.
“We receive applications from every region of Scotland and the 100 selected are the top performing fifth year students in Mathematics and Science. Such is the success of the school, over 400 previous attendees have now graduated and secured top jobs within the science and technology industries.
“Science and technology play a large part in all our lives and in the economy of Scotland, and the Space School seeks to inspire the next generation to pursue science and engineering courses of study, and consider careers in these fields.”
At the conclusion of the week, 10 of the pupils will be selected to go on a Learning Journey to the Johnson Space Center in Houston,Texas, in November.. This life changing experience, meeting the leading players in the space programme coupled with the skills they gain from the visit, will be invaluable in providing the students with a platform to build a career in the industry.
