Science competition for all UK Secondary education students and their schools:

Curious About Copper Poster Competition

Calling the UK’s young scientists! Design an A3 poster exploring the properties of copper to win a first prize of £100 (and £500 for your school) or a runner up prize of £50 (and £250 for your school).

The competition is open to all UK students (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales).

1. Choose a category to explore:

Buildings and Design
Copper and its alloys have been a material of choice for architects and designers for centuries. Why? What are the properties of copper that make it such a versatile and attractive material?

Electronics and CommunicationCopper has played a key role in the development of electrical applications and is used everywhere from smart phones to space exploration. What are the properties that make it so useful?

Health and MedicineWe need copper in our diets to stay healthy, and its inherent germ-killing ability makes it the ultimate hygienic material. Why is it essential to our health?  How can it contribute to safer hospitals?

2. Design a poster:

•  Make it appealing and educational for secondary school children. 
• Give examples of copper’s use in your chosen category and explore the properties that see it so widely used.
• Answer the questions, and make sure it's A3-sized!

3. Submit your poster:

• Write in an email, or on the back of your poster: Your name and email address.Your age category: 11–14 (Years 7–9) or 14–16 (Years 10–11).Your teacher’s name and email address.Your school’s address.

• Email your poster as a PDF to bryony.samuel@copperalliance.org.uk, or post a hard copy to:
  Copper Development Association, 5 Grovelands Business Centre, Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP2 7TE
• All entries must be received on or before May 29 2015!

Judges will be looking for factual accuracy and a clear demonstration that you understand the properties of copper. Creativity, attractiveness, originality and clarity of layout will also be assessed.

Judging will take place in June and winners will be notified by email. Prizes will be sent to the school. If a school has more than one student winner, it will receive the largest prize only.

Information and Inspiration

To get started, you can browse our Education Resources, Copper: Key to a Sustainable and Healthy World and theCurious About Copper brochure.

London event
Pop-Up Screens <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/> is a mobile cinema that
does a lot of open-air cinema screenings in Summer and other events in
indoor locations at less warm times of the year. They are doing a series
of five films in May which lend themselves to a bit of science
commentary. All take place at Chelsea Town Hall on Fri, Sat or Sun 15-17 May,
1pm or 6.30pm, details below.

  * Alien with science commentary
    <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/movies/alien-with-science-commentary/> -
    6.30pm, 15 May
  * Apollo 13 with science commentary
    <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/movies/apollo-13-science-commentary/>
    - 1pm, 16 May
  * Back to the Future 2 with science commentary
    <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/movies/back-to-the-future-2/> -
    6.30pm, 16 May
  * Shaun of the Dead with science commentary
    <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/movies/shaun-dead-science-commentary/> -
    1pm, 17 May
  * Good Will Hunting with science commentary
    <http://www.popupscreens.co.uk/movies/good-will-hunting-maths-commentary/>
    - 6.30pm, 17 May

Of interest to Primary & Secondary Schools:

16th March 2015, 17:07 Astro-Pi in the maths classroom by Steve Lyon

In partnership with the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada, Europe is sharing in the greatest international project of all time - the International Space Station. The ISS has enough room for its crew of six persons and a vast array of scientific experiments. It’s a lab and a home… in space!
Tim Peake is due to go to the International Space Station in November 2015 and spend six months there carrying out scientific experiments. He will be the first British ESA astronaut to visit the Space Station.
A team of leading UK Space companies, Raspberry Pi and the UK Space Agency have joined forces with Tim to offer young people the chance to devise their own app or experiment. The best of these will be taken to the ISS as part of Tim's mission and run on the Raspberry Pi computers he’s taking with him.
So – what would YOU do with a tiny computer on-board the space-station, equipped with lots of sensors, inputs and outputs? Your ideas can win great prizes for your school, no programming necessary! And to help you get started, we’ve provided lots of ideas and background learning materials.
Secondary school students can win more prizes by coding their solution in Python. Lots of help is available, so don’t worry if you’ve never written any code!
To find out more, go to astro-pi.org but hurry – Tim’s training is almost complete and your idea must be ready to fly too!

The astro-pi competition is a great opportunity to bring the excitement of space travel to your subject. Teachers of science, maths, computing and more will find resources and ideas for the classroom, helping you enrich learning for all students and prepare teams for the competition.