What a week!

We have been very busy around Merseyside during this last week
Regular readers may remember that during March last year we worked with  BOOST Ellesmere Port at the Boat Museum  as part of their science outreach.
We were asked to work with them again but this time at the Whitby High school as part of their science day 2013.
A large number of groups had been assembled ranging from local companies such as Innospec through to Chester Zoo and Liverpool University.
We were asked to start the day with a bang - literally.
We took our secondary show "I wasn't Expecting That!" which demonstrates a wide range of uses for some of our favourite smart materials along with dry ice, hand warmers and a very visual fire ball from milk powder.
We did the show twice for Year 9 who were a bit reluctant to come out and volunteer but were very keen to have a go after the show.

We had a return visit to Knowsley Park Centre for Learning who were hosting their feeder school year 5s for an International day. We had been asked to be China - the science of fireworks so off we went armed with sparklers, indoor roman candles and flame testing plus our milk powder which amazed everyone including the teachers.
The finale was a huge whoosh bottle followed by everyone having their own little bit of gunpowder in a party popper. Even the secondary school staff came to watch.

Finally we spent the day with St Francis of Assisi Academy in Kensington Liverpool. This was part of a special citizenship week and we were fulfilling the Keeping Healthy strand by exploring why we wash. We have some amazing micrographs of parts of the human body and of course we took along our 5 million skin cells, balloon of wind and tub of snot just to make it a bit more real!

Years 7 and 8 made their own toothpaste and trialled it against a commercial one - ours was just as good if not better - although I am not sure I would want to actually brush my teeth with purple toothpaste.
Year 10 were fascinated by what we excrete every day and just how a bath bomb works.

Everyone made a bath bomb so they could make sure they were really clean.
A busy but very satisfying week.