In the Woods (by sarah)

We went into the woods with cubs to talk about climate change and so that they could get muddy in the stream 🙂

Mary adored the adventure running around trying to get over gates and finding dappled sunshine on the forest floor - of course she also tried to go into someones house when we came upon it!

This is not a brilliant pic but - I found a moss pig! It was on what is known as The Winni the Pooh tree and I just really think this bit looks like a pig (piglet?).

And of course the muddiest of all the children was Jean who had decided to go out in crocks and pale yellow trousers instead of wellies and water proofs like she was supposed to!

I only just managed the walk but it was completely without stick and did involve chasing a certain toddler for about an hour!

Mars Curiosity and *the* Space Book for Kids (by sarah)

I spent last week working at the Times Cheltenham Science Festival and as part of it I got to go and see a few of the talks which was brilliant. The first one I selected was Mars Curiosity as I spotted it had my old personal tutor Sanjeev Gupta in it. I also got a ticket for Jeany even though at 7 I thought she might be a bit young but she would never have forgiven me if I had gone to see such a talk with out her!

Sanjeev taught one of my favourite subjects at uni Earth Surface Processes so I was very excited to see how Mars research was going especially after seeing the prototype with Jeany earlier in the week. He looked basically the same but has grey hair! He still moves around far too much for a decent photo but that is what energises his talks (of course he didn't recognise me when I said hello - boo hiss but it has been ten years).

The other talker was Lewis Dartnell who was very engaging and handled the childrens' questions brilliantly at the end including the sad, 'When is it coming home?' Jean has been going on about forever vacations on Mars ever since!

Jean did get a bit confused about the fact the robot is ingesting Mars and yet needed batteries! I explained in whispers that it was eating the rock to see what it was made off and not as food. I was impressed she knew what ingesting ment to be honest. They went through the grissly details of man missions and radiation sickness and stuff Jean is still determined to go to Mars if she can or failing that she asked me if she could build a robot to go and then worked out that the 2030 mission would be a good one for her (she'll be 24).

After the talk I had to head over for a meeting but took Jean to Alaric and Mum and Dad to get the book she wanted signed. My meeting ended really quickly and just as well as I received a phone call from Al saying they couldn't find the book! I asked and was told it had sold out but then I saw a copy on the signing table and ended up talking to a lady who turned out to be the authors wife! It was the last copy!

Jean went and got it signed and I felt an ache of sadness for my impact lithologies and endolithic organisms and a moment of doubt about science communication instead of trying to go back but I missed that boat a long time ago. Jean was instantly obsessed by the book and Alaric and Lewis had a conversation involving lots of hands about space ship design. We had to drag the still reading Jean away from the table so that he could go home!

Jean has had her noise in the book ever since, it is a good childrens' book, informative, fun and easy to read but also it is gamified - the kids get to choose where they go on a stella holiday - Jean has always loved books like You Choose so this is right up her street. The illustrations are lovely and colourful, some simple and some intricate giving it a wide appeal to kids as it has different levels you can appreciate it on. It is one of the best I have seen recently and Jean took it into show and tell at school this week along with her cave man stickers and her t-shirt saying Question Everything. She proudly showed the other kids that it was signed with her name in as well 🙂

Jeany was very excited that they had mentioned Liecester as we had spent the previous week going around the space centre there etc... with my friend Becca 🙂 (still need to process the photos and blog about all of that!)

Here is me and Jeany in our festival t-shirts - I'm hiding it at the end as it isn't that flattering of me! hee hee!

Going Back to School (by sarah)

I have been applying for and organising stuff so that I can go back and study - this morning I got a congratulations email from UWE so it looks like I am going 🙂 It is a Post Graduate Certificate in Practical Science Communication. The course itself I have been looking at for the last few years but wasn't really in a position to attempt it - I am nervous about my pervious attempt to go back but feel it is different this time. For a start it is not me going back it is me moving forward and combining the skill sets I have into one area - Science Communication.

I have craft, art, writing, stage skills and so on not too mention a certain degree in geology, I am desperate to show the world the wonder of science and after a week working at the science festival I am even more convinced that the world needs science communicators. The general public are still frightened of many aspects of science, child are still being told they are not the right gender/class/religion to become a scientist. Scientist who have spent their entire time in accademia often fail to realise that they are not portraying information in an easily accessible way even when they are trying to do out reach which doesn't help with it seeming a scary thing.

I am aware that scientists and academics in general tend to get annoyed with what they see as the masses being encouraged to think that science isn't hard that every body can do it - but that is the point a lot of people could do it if they had been caught early enough and in fact I know many people who have retrained into science later in life. People need to see that science is accessible but to become a 'scientist' takes hard work. Also there is still alot of 'science is boring' going around not too mention the confusion over memorising 'facts' and what what science actually is. It is still regarded by many as a dead subject with no room for thinking and innovation - those within science know that this couldn't be further from the truth which is one of the reasons I think this sort of work is important.

I loved doing Science Show Off last year and that raised another communication issue - scientists tend to be specialists these days but really they do need to have some idea of what is going on in different fields - something one day maybe relavent to what they are trying to work out. Not really sure I want to go down the government and policy route to be honest - I want to do public facing, activities for kids, stuff in museums etc... maybe even more festivals though they would have to get behind the general craft and writing workshops/performances I do.

The course should help me with the science journalism I've been wanting to do and just so much more.

The course is part time and done in intense blocks which works much better for me - so I am hopeful.

Excited/Scared 🙂

Science, Knitting and Dr Who! (by sarah)

Yesterday was amazing, I came up with a solution to Matt Smiths retirement from Dr Who - it was simple really Alaric's cubs think he is an incarnation of the Dr anyway! I think we should petition the BBC 😉

Then I turned up as a last minute recruit to the Cheltenham Science Festival - I'm doing impact research - basically walking around with shiny tech asking questions for Warick University. The team are lovely - if anyone is about - come over and say hello!

Then I met a lady from Surrey University who is using knitting to explain chemistry - similar to my knitted molecules she is crowd sourcing knitting to create a giant models of minerals 🙂

She is giving out the patterns 🙂 And I am going to be knitting up all my blue wool for the project! I am also hoping to catch the lovely Lizzy Burns who's molecular jewellery and glass ware I had on display in March for Science and Engineering week 🙂

Then to cap it all I found a welcome to UWE email in my in box - it is still stuff about processing applications but it made my day 🙂

For the knit wits out there it is The Perovskite Project and they are looking for more knitters 🙂

June’s and July’sTo-Dos (by sarah)

I am sunburnt (I was wearing factor 50!) and am tired and exhillerated! I had a fantastic weekend running craft workshops at Wychwood Festival, as a family we also took part in many of the activities and listened to an interesting aray of music and learnt new skills. I belly danced everyday of the festival and went back tonight to the classes I was doing before medical stuff hijacked me at the beginning of the year.

May was a great month with me working on children's books etc... but June... well June and July are my FiMos - Finishing Months. I plan to finish projects!

And what alot of projects I have :/ Once again they seem to have multiplied! On top of that there is more art stuff and craft stuff and festivals and poetry to do and I may also have just been roped in as of this afternoon to do stuff at the Cheltenham Science Festival 🙂 Which is exciting!

Oh and just to be extra geeky I also signed up todo treki knitting on Ravelry 🙂

The summer tends to be quiet intense for me - there is also a trip to be in the Hanwell carnival and another to see Neil Gaiman and Claire Armistead at the Royal Society of Literature this month.

So here we go!