News

Oxfordshire Seized by Science

Friday, 26 February 2010 12:50pm

Science Oxford, a key partner in the Oxfordshire Science Festival, is organising and hosting a number of science events for families, the general public and schools at Science Oxford Live and will be enthusing thousands of visitors at the launch in the heart of Oxford.

OSF 2010 will kick off on 6 March at 12pmwith ’Science In Your World’ which will transform Broad Street into a science extravaganza. With 20 stalls offering hands-on science activities and a programme of exciting shows including Oxford Philomusica and Professor Marcus du Sautoy, local street dance champions Step2, Dr Death and the Medieval Medicine Show, Superhero Science and an attempt to break the World Record for the longest game of Chinese whispers to raise awareness of Motor Neurone Disease. Science In Your World will open 16 days packed with science events across Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties.

At Science Oxford Live, families will find out about the Bloodhound Adventure – an exciting engineering project aiming to design and build a car capable of travelling at 1000mph, Starstuff and Supergiants with local author Keith Mansfield bringing together science and fiction, and will interact with local geologists at Fabulous Finds to discover what our county is made of. Adults will be able to discuss NHS electronic patient records, to better understand the effects of high altitude on the human body, to focus on low carbon living and become part of the solution, and to vote for their favourite nominee at the Black Heroes of Science Awards. Not forgetting local primary and secondary schools which will be able to discover the science of the very cold with a science of ice cream session and receive a live energy lesson covering fossil fuels and renewables.

From Witney to Wallingford and wider, people will have the opportunity to stretch their minds at seminars and demonstrations, to get their hands busy making slime, looking down microscopes and getting up close and personal with wildlife. The Oxfordshire Science Festival aims to make science real and fun everyone, even for those who get think science is not for them. Full details of all events can be found at www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.co.uk

The 2009 Festival was a great success with 50 events and an incredible 12540 participants and the 2010 festival is set to double these figures making it one of the biggest and fastest growing science festivals in the country. The festival partners MRC, Oxford Brookes, Oxford Inspires, Oxford Natural History Museum, Science Oxford, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics are delighted that the festival has taken off and hope that it becomes an annual feature on the community calendar.

Festival coordinator, Renee Watson thinks we are gathering evidence that the festival is reaching people who would not normally think science is for them “We try to make the festival interesting for everyone. We are doing science in a pub, in shopping centres and on farms to show that science is a part of everyone’s world no matter where you are from. We saw a really diverse audience participate last year and we want the festival to become even more of a real community event.”