Hundreds of schoolchildren on the Isle of Wight will be looking for the answer to the perennial question “Is there anything out there” at a three-day science festival on the Island next week.
Big Bang @ Isle of Wight, to be held on 14th, 15th and 16th July at Carisbrooke College, is one of a series of ‘mini’ Big Bang events being staged throughout the region this year in conjunction with the 2015 Big Bang Fair South East, which took place on 30th June.
The Isle of Wight event is based around the theme of SETI – Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence – and around 150 primary and secondary school students are expected to attend each day. Activities will include making machines to view and explore the planets and moons in our solar system.
Code and cipher activities will enable young visitors to decrypt messages from space and to compose answers, a solar telescope will be available for the students to use and sixth-formers will be undertaking an extended project on the effect on the atmosphere of plant life developing on planets.
Event organiser Charlie Dunford, of Carisbrooke College, said:
“We have also rolled out our Isle of Wight STEM hovercraft challenge so that five teams from secondary schools on the island will be competing and showing their machines. We will also have a launch activity for next year’s challenge.
“This is the first event of its type we have organised, and we have spread it across three days because the demand for places has been so great.”
The Big Bang Fair South East 2015 is the biggest single celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) for young people in the UK, and more than 7,000 students and their teachers from across the region attending each year.
