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School Events

As well as all the events taking place around the city which are open to everyone, Milton Keynes Science Festival is also bringing a variety of hands-on workshops into local schools.  Details of some of these events are listed below;

Radioactivity gets a bad press. You will read in many newspapers that it makes you glow in the dark or that we get lots of radiation from nuclear power stations. While it can be dangerous, radioactivity can also be put to good use. This lecture will explain what radioactivity is, where it comes from and how it can damage you. We will then look at some useful applications such as smoke alarms, carbon dating and medical imaging, with plenty of audience participation and demonstrations.

The explanations in this presentation are based on using pictures rather than abstract mathematics. The presentation introduces the concept of symmetry and shows how symmetries are realised in crystals. A new type of crystalline materials called “quasicrystals” was discovered in 1982. The peculiar properties of these intriguing materials, in particular their “forbidden” symmetries, are introduced and explained, in a way that is accessible to secondary school pupils. Depending on the size of the group, the age range of the pupils and the available time, some related demonstrations and/or hands-on activities will be included..

Demonstrations and exhibitions of love temperature storage equipment and reagents, including liquid nitrogen and microscopes, used in the long-term storage of fish eggs and cells.

Some tips on solving the famous puzzle and interesting asides!!

Climate change is happening and it's happening now! What are the implications for our life on this planet? The lecture will review the evidence and show how global warming effects one of the most productive and beautiful systems on the planet - coral reefs. Corals are important for the lives of millions of people and are destroyed by climate extremes, which are increasing with global warming. We have developed new models for coral growth, and the lecture will illustrate these and our genetic studies on corals and their symbiotic algae. Finally, we will illustrate the challenges and opportunities of translating science into conservation action, using examples from Jamaica and Belize.

A hands-on code-cracking event using state of the art software to tour the world of secrecy, starting with ancient codes, moving right up to present day, internet security codes.

Have you ever wondered why the sun is yellow? What it would look like from Pluto? How it affects life here on Earth? Come to our website at http://www.open.ac.uk/OurSun, which will go live shortly, and you'll be able to find out all about the sun - how it works, how far away it is and what would happen if the sun went out. Discover what makes a day, why we have seasons, and why the year isn't quite 365 days long!. If you log on during the Milton Keynes Science Festival, you'll even be able to chat with real scientists who look at the sun every day, and see pictures taken during the week. Not only that, but you'll be able to ask questions and get answers from the experts!

Children take part in 6 science investigations to solve the mystery of Dr Brain's experiments. As special government scientists they compete to win prizes.

Each entrant has to submit a design for an alien form of life, according to certain scientific principles.

This activity is for pupils with an interest in languages (specifically French) and/or Information Technology. We will introduce a computer program which allows people who do not speak the same language to communicate with each other. It is called CROCODIAL (short for Crosslingual Computer-mediated Dialogue), and can, for example, be used to communicate with a shopkeeper who does not speak English; the intended application is people who are travelling abroad. Currently the system works for English/Turkish, and for the demonstration we intend to also have a version for English/French. We will give pupils the opportunity to play with the system through structured tasks (e.g., buying an item in a virtual grocery). We will also give them an accessible introduction to the underlying Information Technology.

A day of lectures and talks on the theme of Astronomy and Cosmology. Our speakers are from various universities and the talks will be aimed at Sixth form level but will also be beneficial to able year 10 students. Dr Andrew J. Norton (Open University) will give a talk on the hunt for extra-solar planets. Dr Norton works at the OU and they are part of the super WASP project. (Wide Angle Search for Planets).

Dr Robin Catchpole from the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University will give this talk.

Dr Tom Maccarone from The University of Southampton will talk about this growing and increasingly important area of Astronomy.

Dr Garret Cotter from the University of Oxford will talk about the expansion of the universe and the latest developments and discoveries in this area.

Dr Carolin Crawford from the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University will give a talk based around this topic and we hope ‘resources permitting’ will conclude by making a comet.

An interactive demonstration show featuring many interesting and counter-intuitive experiments, many of which relate to the science national curriculum. Pupils are encouraged to predict, estimate and participate and to develop explanations for what they see.

The day shows chemistry and the broadly related sciences as diverse rewarding and wealth-creating activities found in industry research and everyday life.  Year 7- year 10 students see new career opportunities and companies publicise the skills needed in their professions and enhance their own staff training and recruitment.  Demonstrator training given by RSC (Royal Society of Chemists).

The banded snail (which is very common in Milton Keynes) occurs in several different colours and varies in its banding pattern. These differences are shaped by evolution and snails tend to have shells that camouflage them against the background colour of the habitat in which they live. We will be inviting the public, including schools, to search for banded snails in parks, gardens, hedges, and so on and then to tell us what they have found via a specially constructed website. Results will be fed back via the website which will be used to explore the subject of evolution.
http://bio-obs.open.ac.uk/megalab/

Redway Nature shown on our website http://www.open.ac.uk/science/biosci/nature/ and it’s freely accessible to anyone to view. After viewing onscreen it will be possible to print out and cycle around, there may be an audio version available also for download onto mp3 player.