STEM event at the Boat Museum

We had a great 3 days at Ellesmere Port's STEM event which was held at the National Waterways boat museum. This collection of Victorian buildings comes complete with cobble stone paths, narrow boats and canals!! It is an amazing space to work in - our wood framed room up in the ceiling space looked out right over the ship canal and occasionally we saw huge ships float past on their way to the dock.

When we arrived the room was set up for a conference complete with lovely leather chairs - so we dismantled the room, moved all those chairs to protect them from our chemicals and set up for a hands on classroom session.
For the three days we were there we had 5 sessions each day with quite small numbers - the largest group was only 28 - which meant we could have quality time with each pupil.
We shared our smart materials especially the handwarmers, the colour change straws, the heat sensitive paper and the hydrochromic shower curtain.

We then made bath bombs which were a great success and if there was time at the end we shared some of our other goodies such as the energy sticks, the hydrogel balls and the rainbow glasses.

All the pupils were brilliant and really enjoyed themselves. They were asked to write feedback on Post It noted so we created a huge wall of comments.
      " it was awesome!"    "I can't wait to use my bath bomb"     "Science is huge fun"

were just some of the comments left along with lots of smiley faces and thumbs up

We even got our photo taken with the mayor!!

CATCH UP TIME!

Now that the school Easter holiday is here I have time to catch up on what we have been up to over the past few weeks.
We had an amazing day at Ellesmere Port Boat museum as part of  BOOST's STEM event.
Amazingly we didn't drop anything into the water as we made our way across the cobbles and over the lock bridges to the rooms we were using - thank goodness for the trolley but note to self - must buy bungees to stop things slipping!!

Throughout the day we worked with groups of about 30 primary aged pupils, looking at Supermarket Science - our take on "do try this at home" type of science - 5 sessions in all.
We used our latest gizmos to inspire ideas, showing lots of mini experiments to have a go at - and everything can be bought from the supermarket!

The highlight was making their own bath bomb mini muffin to take home although I quite liked my heart shaped versions!

Then it was a very busy day at DaresburySIC with MerseySTEM and secondary school pupils.

Again 5 sessions back to back as Helen and I explained what a Day in the Life of a Science presenter is really like!
Stars of this event were without doubt our amazing jelly marbles which swell to about 30 times their original size and seem to disappear in water.

Colour changing straws which are great but we had to keep in the fridge because the room was so warm!

Bath bombs featured here too and a mass slime making fest!

So now we have two weeks of school holiday to make sure we are ready for the summer term, having done a mini mail drop and following up on possible bookings we should have a good few weeks.
watch this space!