In July we were lucky enough to be invited back to the best action-packed festival within a festival, the Latitude kids’ area!
This year, our Science Art and Writing stand was all about space. Teaming up scientists from the Norwich Research Park, local artist Jacques Nimki and the Events and Engagement team from the University of East Anglia (UEA), we created a mini astronaut training workshop in our usual spot in the kid’s area.
The primary objective of the workshop was to immerse children in the fascinating world of space exploration. We were thrilled to have around 300 children graduate from our astronaut training programme over the 3 days and to share some amazing facts about space that many parents enjoyed too.
Through a series of activities, children learned about rockets, G-force, planets, orbits and gravity, before completing a quiz to see what they had remembered – they all passed with flying colours and were awarded free space-themed books kindly donated by the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
They then visited the writing area of the tent to work with our colleagues from UEA to be astronauts writing postcards home. There were a selection of words on golden stars for the children to mix and match to fill in their postcards with very interesting messages! Finally they learned about star constellations in the art area, including their own birth signs and could pick a range of stencils to do some cosmic art to take home.
We had some great facts and comments left by children on rockets that were gradually added to a night sky scene over the 3 days.
We also had a visit from Cambridge Astronomer, Dr Matt Bothwell who entertained children and parents in the Hive, and with a science show in the Enchanted Garden.
Matt’s new children’s book, Astrophysics for Supervillains covers a great range of fun space stuff and was a sell out at the festival!
Its available via his website: https://www.mattbothwell.com/Supervillains/
