Friday 20 January 2017

The All Change Show

As British Science Week approaches with the theme of Change our regular readers will know we have an amazing 50% discount offer on bookings of the show so I thought it would be a good idea to do a review so that anyone booking will have an idea of what they will be getting.


The KS2 show is based around Materials and their Properties especially thinking about changing materials.
We explore what actually defines a Solid, a Liquid and a Gas using everyday objects and some not so usual!
Can you squash a liquid? How can you change a liquid to a gas or  to a solid?
Are all liquids the same? Try racing them and see!

racing liquids - exploring viscosity


We look at what happens when you warm things up like our colour changing plastic straws


 cool things down - what happens if you freeze fizzy pop?


and set fire to things - did you know powdered milk does this?




Then we get very exciting as we mix materials to make unexpected changes.

instant snow


vinegar and bicarb



We try out an incredible plastic that turns like transparent toffee when warm and you can mould it then goes back to being a strong solid as it cools


Of course it wouldn't be a Science2U show if we didn't have dry ice so we experiment making bubbles that you can catch and clouds of  spooky"fog"



And what about some really weird materials like slime?



This is a great show to get pupils thinking about Change and with plenty of ideas to try out at home hopefully to encourage everyone to have a go themselves.

The offer is for half price on a day consisting of 2 shows and 2 workshops or 3 shows.
The workshops are an opportunity for a class size group to get up close to the gadgets and gizmos from the show - to actually handle some of the materials and we will make a bath bomb to take home - a classic example of mixing materials.

You can find details of our half price show offer here:

Give us a call but hurry dates are booking up quickly



Saturday 14 January 2017

British Science Week Information





Just in case you haven't heard......
British Science Week 2017 will be held on 10th - 19th March
All over the country people will be engaging with science through schools or their local community or perhaps a science centre or museum,
This year the theme is Change which could be the changing seasons, the environment, the climate, energy or changing materials.
We are very happy with that last one because we have a super set of shows and workshops that fit changing materials exactly!













We are running a brilliant 50% discount offer for booking All Change - you can find details on our website here:
http://www.science2u.co.uk/all-change/4582978713
We have also decided to extend the"week" because so many schools want to take part so our Science Week starts on Monday 6th and will run until Fri 17th.


The BSW website has some brilliant resources to help you get the most out of your science week
although they would be great at anytime. The  Activity packs are now available to download for Early Years, Primary and Secondary. They are full of ideas for hands on activities.


Thursday 16th will be Demo Day when everyone is encouraged to excite pupils with a demonstration. There are ideas on the website for secondary schools but we have lots of ideas for primary.
Some of them can be found on the YouTube Primary Science Clips here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOljNzlG06Et_64dDD7ryCq09-iVGvkYO

but we are offering to help with ideas on other themes if schools get in touch. Why not pick a demo and use it in assembly or teach it to year 6 and let them share it with the younger ones

One of the easiest ways to get involved is through the citizen science project Penguin Watch which is a very large ongoing project to collect data on penguins. All you have to do is look at a camera image and click on whether you can see an adult or a chick penguin. Sometimes  it is so snowy you can't see anything  and sometimes there is nothing to see but the view!
You'll find the link on the BSW website - the link is at the top of this blog
Have a go and see for yourself!
Image result for penguin

Saturday 7 January 2017

Review of the Year

Happy New Year to all our friends!
I thought we would share with you a review of the year and some pictures from 2016.



 This year has been one of ups and downs.
The good times - WOW! great events such as BigBang North West and Chem4All with LJMU but also we have missed getting together with old friends because budgets in schools are so tight that they haven't been able to afford us. That is very sad because we know how enjoyable a day with us is and how inspiring it can be for the staff.



our friends at Chestnut Lodge

We have tried hard whenever we have secured funding to share it around and we were thrilled when Mexichem sponsored a day with our friends at Chestnut Lodge. We had so much fun and even though we were saying goodbye and good luck to some of the older pupils we knew we had made an impact.




We had a wonderful if exhausting week at Ellesmere Port Boat museum with local schools at a STEM event organised by IGNITE. Every day we met new pupils and shared our smart materials workshops with them and made bath bombs to take home. We made over 500 during the week and smelled so much of the bubble gum fragrance that we stopped noticing it....our families didn't!

We met new schools this year - some in Cheshire and others in Liverpool where word seemed to get round about us resulting in a flurry of bookings. We also worked with AllAboutSTEM and Techniquest Glyndwr doing shows and workshops


Towards the end of the summer term we got busier and busier as schools used us for an end of year treat. We were happy to be asked back to a primary school by their PTA who decided rather than an end of year disco they would have a science show!


End of June/beginning of July was the culmination of the amazing Chem4All year. This project at LJMU is a long term intervention enthusing staff and pupils in Merseyside schools. We were part of the celebrations - three days of shows and loads of dry ice!





Probably the highlight of the year was BigBang North West which had a new venue - the Liverpool Exhibition Centre right on the waterfront. An amazing venue suitable for an amazing event. It just gets bigger and better each year.
Again we were on the main stage but this time because we were all in the one hall everyone stopped what they were doing to come and watch - 100s of people all fascinated by our science. The publicity pictures are incredible, the Tweets went wild on the day and overnight Helen became the poster girl for the event!!



This Autumn has been much quieter but that has given us time to be creative and we have updated our shows, streamlined our workshops and gathered some great gizmos. We are already getting bookings for British Science Week and our birthday month discount offer so it looks like things will be just as exciting in 2017. Our adventure continues.......