Caithness festival captivates
school kids
Scotland Regional Group: Caithness Science Festival
 The
SCI Scotland Regional Group sponsored part of this year's Caithness
Science Festival. Some 2400 school children from the area
took part in maths workshops, demonstrations and interactive
exhibits, and took an entertaining look at the moon landings
conspiracy theory. The amount of children taking part made
the festival one of the biggest in Scotland this year.
Frances Chapman of Setpoint North ran Funmaths
workshops. These involved 600 children doing brainteasers,
activity modules and puzzles. The high schools in Thurso and
Wick provided venues for some 20 shows by Satrosphere, who
did demonstrations for nearly 1600 pupils of chemical reactions
by producing a genie from a bottle and making toothpaste for
elephants.
Dr Martin Hendry, Head of Physical Sciences
at Glasgow University, presented the talk entitled ‘One
small step, many giant myths: did we really land on the moon’
to an intrigued audience. Using a slide presentation, Dr Hendry
went through the arguments presented by the sceptics who maintain
that the landing was faked and then went on to counter those
claims and give his reasons for believing that the event actually
took place. Very entertaining!
The event was organised by Prof Iain Baikie,
whose aim for next year’s festival is to get a NASA astronaut
as a motivational speaker, and to arrange further workshops.
|
