Schools

07 Mar 08

Discover all about galaxies and symmetry, genetics and the environment - and much more - as we select the highlights from Science Week 2008 events in Oxfordshire.

This year Science Week in Oxfordshire is bigger and better than ever with over 30 events at 14 different venues ensuring that there's something for ages 5 to 105. Whether you want to be inspired by lectures, amazed by experiments, challenged by discussions or even fancy catching a play, we have the science events for you.

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Friday 7 March

In Oxford a debate on transforming British science will see panellists including Oxford's Alex Halliday discuss what science they would splash out £2 billion on. Meanwhile, at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, the Science Meets Music event brings together live music and the science behind beautiful sounds. 

Saturday 8 March

Leading the weekend fun is the always-popular Wow! How? at the OU Musem of Natural History. This year there are 30 stalls and, as well as rocket-launching and slime-making, over-8s will get to meet live crayfish and discover the secrets of bread-making. Elsewhere Puzzlemania invites you to crack a puzzle challenge and bring it along to Science Oxford's Hands On gallery where you could win a prize. A more serious kind of puzzle is being tackled at the Henley on Thames River & Rowing Museum where a lecture on flood risk will analyse the 2007 floods.

Sunday 9 March

If you enjoyed the movie Sunshine you'll be fascinated by a talk on STEREO, the NASA mission that will beam back the first-ever 3D views of the Sun: it's hotting up at the OU Museum of Natural History.

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Monday 10 March

The Oxford University Science Roadshow hits the road on Monday with its first destination being Marlborough School, Woodstock. Dr David Pyle will be giving a free public lecture all about volcanoes, why they erupt and how these eruptions can help cool the Earth's surface.

Tuesday 11 March

Day two of the Science Roadshow sees Professor Peter Atkins visit Cherwell School, Oxford to give a talk on the nature of energy including how engines work and how fridges seem to defy the laws of physics. If you are in Wantage then you could take in a Cafe Scientifique on viruses at the Vale and Downland Museum. Or for a visual feast try an astrophotography exhibition and lecture at the Ashmolean Museum. 

Wednesday 12 March

Oxford's Science Roadshow reaches Didcot Girls' School, Didcot, where Professor Marcus du Sautoy's lecture will explore symmetry in the world around us, the mathematics that can describe it and introduce a 196,833-dimensional snowflake. Elsewhere The Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Headington will be staging an evening of talks on medical matters including; the skin cancer epidemic, cell mechanics, and the hidden origins of childhood leukaemia.

Thursday 13 March

You could take in Hanging Hooke, a play about the great scientist at the Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford (also on Saturday). Alternatively the Science Roadshow will be at Henry Box School, Witney, where Dr Kate Land and Dr Chris Lintott will talk you through 13 billion years of cosmic history; from the Big Bang to current questions in astronomy. For something completely different try a little Punk Science, a fusion of science, comedy and music.

Friday 14 March

The final stop on the Science Roadshow is King Alfred's School, Wantage, where Dr Myles Allen will tackle the issues surrounding climate change, how it will affect all our lives and what we can do to try to halt global warming. In Oxford visitors to Science in the Kitchen (also on Saturday) will find how you don't need a lab to do science: as some amazing experiments with kitchen equipment go to prove.

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Saturday 15 March

Round-off the week by visiting Oxford's Museum of the History of Science where over-9s will get to build their very own ancient scientific instrument - the armillary sphere - ready to take home and experiment with. Alternatively if you are in Henley on Thames the River & Rowing Museum's Gulliver's Travels event invites over-7s to hunt down tiny creatures and examine them up-close under a special video microscope.