Category Archives: What’s On

Glow meet live from Scottish space school June 15th 10.00am

Join us for this exciting opportunity to explore space travel and meet 3 exciting guests in one day!

Anatoly Artsebarsky – Cosmonaut

Alvin Drew – Astronaut

Amber Gell – Spacecraft systems engineer

Find out more about what they do, take part in space quizzes and use this opportunity to find out more about the world of space exploration.

Click here to find out more information and a sign up sheet for this Glow meet

Scottish space school press release

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.

Maths in the pipeline

http://www.techfestsetpoint.org.uk/activities/maths/pipeline

‘Maths In The Pipeline’ is a full day of mathematical workshops and challenge for 15 year olds based on the applications of mathematics in the oil and gas industry. All the days workshops are based on real data and the Captain Field in the Moray Firth is used as an example.

Beforehand pupils can undertake an interactive, virtual visit to the Captain Platform via the website: http://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/SPE/index.html.

Pupils from different schools are placed in a team and work alongside industry professionals at an industry venue. During the morning the teams are introduced to key industry topics and solve problems on these whilst developing their team working skills. The highlight of the day is the afternoons business challenge. With a deadline to meet and a presentation to be made this is both realistic and demanding.

Following on from Maths In The Pipeline, pupils can get involved with STEM In The Pipeline at S6 level.

 Contact us for more info about Maths In The Pipeline

The University of Edinburgh School of informatics schools outreach

“Our school outreach programmes are designed to educate school aged children about informatics in a fun and informative way. In an age of information technology it is important that future generations are engaged and educated not just about computers and computer science, but about information in its widest sense.

We offer a variety of outreach programmes and activities that help to teach school age children about informatics in a ‘hands on’ and imaginative way.”

Quoted from the website.  Click the link below for more information.

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/informatics/outreach/schools/overview

International Year of Chemistry – Be part of Scotland’s chemistry map

For the International Year of Chemistry in 2011, the Scottish Local Sections of the Royal Society of Chemistry are  organising a special activity in Scotland.  We want you to put your school on the map by researching your local area for people, places, discoveries, inventions related to chemistry.

The contacts for further information in each of the RSC Local Sections are as follows:

Edinburgh and South East Scotland – Dr Elizabeth Stevenson (E.Stevenson@ed.ac.uk)

Tayside and Fife- Dr. Richard Baker (Richard Baker <rtb5@st-andrews.ac.uk>)

Aberdeen and North Scotland – Dr Richard Wells  (r.wells@abdn.ac.uk)

Mid-Scotland – Terry Howe (tvhowe@lineone.net)

Glasgow and West of Scotland – Dr. Justin Hargreaves <Justin.Hargreaves@glasgow.ac.uk

In 2011 put your school on the Chemistry map.

The Global Water experiment

For the International Year of Chemistry in 2011, the Scottish Local Sections of the Royal Society of Chemistry are co-ordinating Scotland-wide participation in the International Year of Chemistry Global Water Experiment.

The Global Water Experiment consists of 4 simple hands-on activities for you to carry out on a sample of rain-water:

•Measuring acidity •Measuring salinity (salt content) •Purifying water by filtration •Purifying water using the sun’s energy

All experiments have links to Curriculum for Excellence in science, social studies, health and well-being, technologies.

Results will be electronically showcased as an interactive global data map at the end of 2011, demonstrating the value of international cooperation in science.

Full instructions are available on the International Year of Chemistry website:

http://www.chemistry2011.org/participate/featured-ideas/global-experiment/

Celebration of science and engineering

Organised by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry. Young Engineers and Science Clubs across Scotland will showcase their projects.  In addition, new Scottish Government Junior Saltire Prize Awards and a range of Green Energy Awards will be presented by the First Minister.  The jam-packed programme includes STEM challenges, science shows and a 3D IMAX movie. 

Glasgow Science Centre
P7-S6
Fri 10th June
9:30-2pm
Participation by Invitation only, but spectators welcome. Please contact jane.martin@scdi.org.uk for further information.

 

For more information click here.

CUER Future Car Design Competition

To celebrate their new solar car design, Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER) are launching a national competition, for school pupils aged from 6 to 14, to design a car for the future. Unlike CUER’s car, the designs will not be restricted to solar power, but the team will still be looking for some exciting and innovative ideas.

Competition entries will be judged, in three age categories, by some of CUER’s technical team. Those shortlisted will be invited to the CUER design launch and ‘solar fun day’ event in May. CUER’s cars are developed to race in the biennial ‘World Solar Challenge’, the ‘Formula One’ of eco-friendly motorsport, which is a 3000 kilometre race across the Australian Outback. In 2009, CUER entered the race for the first time as the only UK team. This year, having developed a much improved car design, CUER will be unveiling their design at a special event in Cambridge. This design launch event is to be combined with an educational ‘solar fun day’, giving attendees the chance to design own solar powered vehicles, and an award ceremony for the design competition winners. Category winners will be announced at this event, alongside CUER’s new design, and the overall winning design will feature in pride of place on CUER’s completed car when it races in Australia in October.

 Materials and information on the competition can be found at www.cuer.co.uk/future or can be obtained by emailing outreach@cuer.co.uk

Click to download the Poster