A while back an home educating friend suggested we check out the schools lectures at the Royal Institution. We booked for one of the lectures last year but sadly our train was delayed and we missed it. I've booked another couple of events for this year and our first was today. I must admit I was a little unsure as when we booked it was called "Chemistry goes bang" but when I actually came to print the tickets the event had been changed to "Science Misadventures" as the original speaker was ill.
When we arrived we were shown into the lecture room where a couple of big school groups were already settled and chanting out the answers to questions projected up on the wall. There was a great atmosphere!
The new guest speaker was Fran Scott who describes herself as a "science translator" and has designed science demonstrations for the Science Museum, BBC live stage shows and numerous television productions including Richard Hammond's Blast Lab, and Bang Goes the Theory. She was fun and engaging and the demonstrations were brilliant. Friction was demonstrated by interleaving the pages of books and then trying to pull them apart, first by two children live and then on video holding up an entire car!
She then moved on to non-Newtonian fluids such as ketchup and oobleck.
Then came the part everyone was waiting for..... the explosions! After a quick demonstration of the flammability of hydrogen bubbles on a teacher's hand...
She then combined hydrogen with oxygen in a paint tin for two impressive explosions!
For a finale (and taking her 5 minutes overtime!) she created a huge bang using Carbon Dioxide this time!
We left the Royal Institution after quickly having a look around, Papaya particularly wanted to know who the big statue in the entrance hall was of....
........It was of course Michael Faraday one of the most influential scientists in history!
We continued the science theme to the day by heading to the Natural History Museum, where after a quick lunch...
We headed up the awesome escalator through the iron earth sculpture.
Typically the very thing they wanted to see the most; the earthquake demonstration was closed that day!
We had a great time exploring all the other galleries though, learning about the planet we live on....
...touching on genetics with our family of curvy thumbs!
The Human Biology section was their favourite this time and we spent a good hour or so there trying everything out.
I had to get a close up of Monkey safe in his sling, she's such a little mother!
We finished at that museum and headed down the road to the Science Museum too to get in a bit of time at Launch pad...
We stayed at the Science Museum until it closed, and as I walked back along the underpass to South Kensington Tube with a hot little hand in each of mine and them jabbering away about all the things they'd seen and learned that day it was one of those moments I love being able to home educate!
When we arrived we were shown into the lecture room where a couple of big school groups were already settled and chanting out the answers to questions projected up on the wall. There was a great atmosphere!
The new guest speaker was Fran Scott who describes herself as a "science translator" and has designed science demonstrations for the Science Museum, BBC live stage shows and numerous television productions including Richard Hammond's Blast Lab, and Bang Goes the Theory. She was fun and engaging and the demonstrations were brilliant. Friction was demonstrated by interleaving the pages of books and then trying to pull them apart, first by two children live and then on video holding up an entire car!
She then moved on to non-Newtonian fluids such as ketchup and oobleck.
Then came the part everyone was waiting for..... the explosions! After a quick demonstration of the flammability of hydrogen bubbles on a teacher's hand...
For a finale (and taking her 5 minutes overtime!) she created a huge bang using Carbon Dioxide this time!
We left the Royal Institution after quickly having a look around, Papaya particularly wanted to know who the big statue in the entrance hall was of....
........It was of course Michael Faraday one of the most influential scientists in history!
We continued the science theme to the day by heading to the Natural History Museum, where after a quick lunch...
We headed up the awesome escalator through the iron earth sculpture.
Typically the very thing they wanted to see the most; the earthquake demonstration was closed that day!
We had a great time exploring all the other galleries though, learning about the planet we live on....
...touching on genetics with our family of curvy thumbs!
...and making the rest of us curvy too!
The Human Biology section was their favourite this time and we spent a good hour or so there trying everything out.
I had to get a close up of Monkey safe in his sling, she's such a little mother!
We finished at that museum and headed down the road to the Science Museum too to get in a bit of time at Launch pad...
We stayed at the Science Museum until it closed, and as I walked back along the underpass to South Kensington Tube with a hot little hand in each of mine and them jabbering away about all the things they'd seen and learned that day it was one of those moments I love being able to home educate!
Looks like an absolutely fab day was had by all! :)
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