Interactive Primary Newsletter 37 Put some colour into your life

Primary Summer School - Edinburgh June 25th-28th 2006 The summer school was organised by Careers Scotland with materials and activities provided by Johnson Space Centre (Houston), Dundee University and several partners in the Support for Science Education through CPD Initiative. It also included visits to the Royal Observatory, Our Dynamic Earth and Royal Botanic Garden (Edinburgh). Participants experienced a wide variety of aspects of the science curriculum with activities for all stages. Figure 1 - Challenge & enjoyment Educators from America, working for NASA, ran three different workshops giving lots of excellent hands-on activities for Earth and Space, including formation of volcanoes and making a cooling garment which was of similar construction to the suits worn by astronauts. They compared the conditions on Mars and Earth and introduced us to the Goldilocks Planets i.e. neither too hot nor too cold and therefore increasing the chances of life having existed in the past or being sustainable now and in the future. After the final workshop, one of the educators was returning to America to be on hand for the imminent arrival back to Earth of the Space Shuttle Discovery (Fig. 2), which brought home to the Summer School the reality of the space programme. Figure 2 - Space Shuttle Discovery Other workshops included Scotland’s Journey (geology and the rocks of Scotland), Let’s Talk (raising scientific issues with young people), Fun with Forensics, Introduction to Plant Science and Energy and Forces (demonstrating the potential of toys as teaching aids). At the end of a busy three days the participants agreed that it had been a very worthwhile experience, their confidence in their ability to teach science had increased and they were taking home lots of new ideas and resources.    Figures 3 - Energy and Forces - Toys                                   Figure 4 - Modelling volcanic lava flows       Figure 5 (left) - Sun hats and solar necklaces Figure 6 (middle) - Plant science - making fruit smoothies Figure 7 (right) - Viewing the sun safely Audacity Mind Map