Tripping the Light Fantastic with Upton Heath Chester

 We had a wonderful time on Thursday with Upton Heath primary school in Chester exploring light and colour through our show Inside the Rainbow.
This show is probably our favourite because it is so lovely to watch expressions of the children as they enter a darkened room full of so many different sorts of lights - disco balls splashing coloured light across the ceiling, fibre optic lamps shimmering, a lava lamp is slowly glooping away, the plasma ball is doing it's thing looking so exciting......
Everyone wants to peep into the darkened hall to see what is happening!!

The first show was with year 1 and 2 who came in so quietly trying very hard to contain their excitement when they saw how amazing the room looked.
This show is such a lovely experience - after feeling so warm and glowing in all this light we turn off everything and realise how different it feels to be in the dark and how little we can actually see. Helen and I are dressed for the occasion and we light up our  EL outfits and uncover our glow bracelets and suddenly we are having a wonderful time playing with all sort of gadgets and gizmos that use light.

We all made huge shadows and kept some on a special shadow sheet.
We explored the rainbow using our amazing glasses and then found out that some insects can see beyond the rainbow in Ultraviolet so we used our special lights to show secret messages.
Helen helped some excited volunteers to set fire to special chemicals and show how how fireworks are coloured and then Sue made a spectacular sparkler with some extra fine iron filings

We bounced light around the room using mirrors, used our muscles to make torches light up and the teachers lit up special tubes using our plasma ball.

All to soon it was time to leave for break.
Waiting at the door of the hall were  a group of reception children who were almost squeaking they were so excited because this was an unexpected extra - a short session with us playing with the toys, dressing up in the EL lights and wearing the rainbow glasses. We got lots of hugs as they left.......

After break we were much more serious with year 2 and 3.....well a little bit! Similar show but with a bit more added science explanation

In the afternoon we worked with year 3 who are studying light and colour right now.
We looked at how with just three colours we can make a whole rainbow - the wonderful coloured patterns they created will make great displays.

We made our own secret messages using two different special pens - one that we revealed using another pen and then we wrote messages that needed the UV light the reveal them.




Finally in small groups we made special lava lamps in deep red  that we lit up to make a super display and one group helped us to make a little video clip

Colour Change Technology

As regular readers will know Science2U likes to play with new technology and share gadgets and gizmos that are out there and available for everyone to get hold of.
In our Chemistry@work days at Daresbury lab we often share our colour change straws - thermochromic plastic

 our heat sensitive paper - thermochromic ink

and our colour change shower curtain  - hydrochromic technology.

Our latest purchase is actually a toddler playmat but it uses hydrochromic colour change technology to allow young children to draw using only water.
Remember those magic painting books where you only used water and colour appeared - well think like that but re-useable!
Our mat is in rainbow colours so using a water filled pen you can draw or using a brush you can paint  and even use stamps on a water mat. Water reveals an almost magical rainbow of colour which eventually fades away as the mat dries. You can see the appeal to parents - no mess and the only consumable is water!

Our idea is to ask the school groups to sign in with a graffitti style tag which we will display throughout the session but by the time the next group arrives it will have dried out and faded ready to be used again.

Along with our UV colour change loom band bracelets

link to Youtube UV colour change loom bands

we think we have a winning summer fun session for our last Chem@work day of this acadmic year

Tripping the light fantastic

What a wonderful job we have!
On Thursday we travelled to Parochial Primary School Ashton-u-Lyne to deliver our show Inside the Rainbow which is all about light and colour.

We couldn't believe that it is almost a year since we were first there but some of the children remembered us - which was great!
In two sessions the whole school including the nursery were able to experience one of our favourite shows.
Picture the scene - you enter the school hall which is in darkness and at the front you can see so many twinkling, spinning and colour changing lights - it is like a mini Blackpool!

The youngest ones were so excited but incredibly well behaved and sat through the whole show riveted - some were very brave and came out to help us.

Starting in the dark we explored natural and man made lights, looking at shadows on the way and experiencing all the colours of the rainbow with the wonderful rainbow glasses.

We were dressed in black with EL lighting which is very flexible and can be twisted into lots of shapes so we we were wearing it around us.

For the older ones we found out about the vocabulary used in light, we explored chemical colours, bio and chemi-luminescence and Helen showed off her super light sabre

We heard all about Helen's dog Monty who was given a lovely new ball for Christmas but it was red and as dogs don't see red very well we all decided that for his birthday she should buy him a blue and yellow one which he will be able to see really well!
The show finished with Helen illuminating hidden messages on the walls with a UV torch.

A very sensory experience for everyone and a super day for us all.