SCIENCE CENTRE RECEIVES FUNDING FOR EDUCATION OUTREACH

July 15, 2008

The Centre for Life, in Newcastle, has received funding to deliver an educational outreach programme to schools across the region.

A grant of nearly £24,000 was made by Edina Trust, a charity founded by eminent scientist Professor Sir Ed Southern, FRS, to promote science in schools.

The Centre for Life’s education centre, Lifelab, which provides curriculum-linked educational experiences for schoolchildren, will use the grant to deliver its Forces and Motion in Space workshop. The workshop will be delivered to Year 5 and Year 6 pupils from 60 schools across the North East which are in rurally isolated areas or areas of social deprivation.

Noel Jackson, Head of Education at the Centre for Life, said, “We ran a very successful outreach programme last year and this new funding will enable us to follow on from that. We are very grateful to Edina Trust for their support. The grant has enabled us to buy laptops that will allow pupils to carry out very sophisticated science experiments. The schools involved are those that, because of their isolated and or socially deprived location, find it difficult to access science centres and the resources on offer.”

The Forces and Motion in Space workshop uses children’s fascination with Space Science to explore fundamental aspects of forces, particularly gravity and air resistance. Hi-spec laptops will run sensors allowing pupils to recreate Galileo’s experiment* by timing the fall of a variety of objects between two light gates. A modern version of Newton’s Guinea and Feather experiment will enable the students to see the effect of air resistance. To conclude, the students use their understanding of gravity and air resistance to design and build rockets.

Edina Trust is a charity registered in Scotland which supports science education projects, particularly at primary school level.
Dr Sonia Morgan, the Chair of Trustees for the Edina Trust, said, “The Trust is pleased to provide this grant to Lifelab so that it can take its useful workshops out to school children who might not otherwise be able to benefit from the exciting centre in Newcastle. The Trust hopes that exposure to Lifelab’s workshops will encourage more children to develop a keen interest in science.”

Lifelab, at the Centre for Life, offers science learning opportunities across all Key Stages. A programme of over 50 structured, hands-on workshops makes Lifelab the largest provider of curriculum-linked educational experiences for schoolchildren in Europe.

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Media contact: Nicola McIntosh, PR Executive, Centre for Life
Tel: (0191) 2438209 Email: Nicola.mcintosh@life.org.uk

*Galileo’s experiment

In the late sixteenth century, it was generally believed that heavier objects would fall faster than lighter objects. The Italian scientist, Galileo, thought differently. Galileo hypothesized that two objects would fall at the same rate regardless of their mass. Legend has it that in 1590, Galileo planned out an experiment. He climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped several large objects to test his theory.

Galileo’s experiment proved his hypothesis correct; the acceleration of a falling object is independent of the object’s mass. A few decades after Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton would show that acceleration depends on both force and mass. While there is a great force acting on a larger object, this force is cancelled out by the object’s greater mass. Thus two objects will fall (they are actually pulled) to the earth at exactly the same rate.