Big Bang Fair School Science competition

Of interest to School Science teachers...?

The Big Bang Access All Areas

Don't miss out - there's still time to enter our competition!

Share science, technology, engineering or maths related facts with your class for a chance to win amazing QI prizes! (Including a signed pic of Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, tickets to see a live recording of the TV show - and many more!)

For more information and some facts to help get you started, check out: http://www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/interesting

interesting

www.thebigbangfair.co.uk

The Big Bang is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK. Everything we do is aimed at showing young people just how many exciting and rewarding 

Using NodeXL to visualise a Twitter BigBangFair network

Microsoft NodeXL graph of Twitter network of people tweeting about @bigbangfair
(I'm the STEMnet Ambassador icon :-) )

Reflections on IFR Day 2 @Bigbangfair

Another insanely busy day on the IFR stand at Big Bang Fir. Our network stand was very popular with young people crowding the tables to get one of our food passport bags and get onto @MEandER pizza network sculpture. We were relieved when Joanne, Dr Phil & Charlotte arrived to reinforce us. They went into flat out packing of the bags as our supply was dwindling. Even this heroic effort wasn't enough to keep up with the maximum flow (Networks reference :-)) and we had to close the stand for 15 minutes whilst we went all hands to the pumps to re-supply before next surge.
Jozsef (Baranyi) and I had a frantic but wonderful time talking about the maths of network science and it's applicability to the real-life problem of food safety & Food sceurity.

Two concerns remain 1) will our passport supply last out to Sunday and 2) will my voice last out?

I feel this has been our best stand so far and that we've successfully engaged with a huge number of youngsters about IFR science. We could not have done this without our volunteer helpers and generous funding by IFR and the Global Food Security consortium.

More photos to follow (including a mightily passport festooned sculpture)....

IFR on Day 1 @Bigbangfair at Excel London

Our Big Bang Fair Experience starts today with schoolchildren fro around UK getting their contemporary science fix.
We arrived yesterday at about 1pm and in a mere 8 hours had unloaded both vans and got both the IFR and JIC stands up (photos to follow) in what could only be described as Ice Station Zebra conditions....

We're showing how food-borne outbreaks fof  in our global food supply chain can occur and our weapon of choice to explain it is Network Science - so break out the math!

Recent IFR Outreach activities

Just a quick post about outreach activities that the Institute of Food Research has been involved with recently.
Firstly, Big Bang Fair 2012 - I wrote a Blog entry for the IFR Blog here.
Secondly, the Science in Norwich day last saturday at the Forum in Norwich (Local newspaper article and photos here). I wasn't at the latter but it seems to have gone exceedingly well with good experiences from JIC, IFR, UEA and many others.

Big Bang Day 3

Hoo boy! Busiest day yet - the public (i.e. families) arrive. Incredibly diverse range of questions which really kept us on our toes - extremely stimulating (if a little wearing on the vocal cords - loud tannoys & PAs to drown you out..)

Large queues for the Space UK ride (don't know if anyone threw up :-))

Other great stands included a STEM club at a secondary school that delivered a science activity to rest of school plus a Primary feeder school (Kudos!) and a school's project on the microbial contamination of mobile phones (apparently some pupils take their phones into the toilets as they are not allowed to use them in school and this just increases the odds of something nasty getting on the mobiles...).

Big Bang Day 2

Loads more children today. Plenty of popcorn got burnt and boxes of wristbands got given out>
Two nice stands spotted (society for applied microbiology - epidemic with typing of organisms) and Durham schools Science and Maths Buskers (Pupils trained to busk) - really inspirational.

Dave's DIY calorimeter needed some running repairs (mainly due to almost constant usage) - so here is the man himself doing his Bicycle Repairman bit (Monty Python sketch reference).









Steven doing a sports health race game with a small horde of pupils playing it. There were some tough questions (so much that some simpler ones were written for future use with the younger children).

Big Bang 2012 day one

Feet up in B&B after a busy day at Big Bang 2012. Predominantly primary schools today. Many quite knowledgeable on caloties. Dave's calorineter worked well and we moved on from burning popcorn to jelly beans. Finding blogging hard from tablet without bluetooth keyboard. Tomorrow should be mainly secondary schools.
To give a flavour of the show see some youtube footage posted by Big Bang Fair below.

For Science Teachers - IFR Big Bang 2012 Crossword resource

One resource on the Institute of Food Research Big Bang Fair (The Big Bang Fair (@BigBangFair) on Twitter)  stand is a crossword to test pupils upon the theme of Food4Sport.

In the highly likely event that we run out of paper copies (and for those who couldn't make it to Big Bang), here is a link to a PDF version.
If you are coming to this event, we look forward to meeting you at our stand!
Come and sing the "Glucose" Song (courtesy of singaboutscience.org), see how a calorimeter works, find out what types of foods athletes need to eat to do well, play some nutrition games and much more...). Also, visit our colleagues at the Food Security stand...

Creating and using Crosswords in Science Outreach

For outreach activities, the time that you can spend interacting with people can be quite limiting and it can be useful to have 'take home' activities. A good example of this is the beloved crossword puzzle.

I found a promising (& free) package aclled EclipseCrossword that can either import a word/clue list or take input from user and generates a variety of crossword layouts. You choose the one you like and can print, save to EPS and Word (for further reprographic work) or save as an interactive (Java applet or javascript) web-deployed crossword.
I've not yet cracked how to get it into Blogger but here's a link to one (For Big Bang 2012) on the group's web-server.

Institute of Food Research to be at Big Bang Fair 2012

During National Science and Engineering Week, which is organised by the British Science Association, Institute of Food Research scientists will be attending the Big Bang Fair, the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK. Held from 15-17 March in The NEC, Birmingham, over 30,000 people are expected to learn about science and the exciting careers it can provide. IFR will be showcasing some of the opportunities food science provides, by looking at food for sport and explaining what exactly a calorie is, where all the information of calories in foods comes from, and why sportsmen prefer to look at glycaemic index.
Additionally, BBSRC (our major funder) will have an interactive stand on Food Security at Big Bang.
Update on Food Security stand:
Global Food Security will be exhibiting a great opportunity for students or children to experience science, technology, engineering and maths up close in a fresh new way.
At our stand you will be able to have a go on the two brand new iPad apps developed especially for the Fair. You can learn more about food security, how research is addressing the issues, and tell us your views.
Our physical activities include learning about wheat yields, where your food comes from and waste - how much food we throw away and at which parts of the supply chain.
Thursday and Friday are for teachers and schools, and Saturday is the family day.

National Science & Engineering Competition at Big Bang Fair 2012

This may be of interest to Maths & Science High School classes and teachers:
  
The Big Bang Fair 2012
In 2012, The Big Bang will take place between the 15th and 17th March at The NEC, Birmingham. We will be welcoming school groups on the 15th and 16th and family groups on the 17th.

National Science & Engineering Competition
Do you know any 11-18 year olds who have completed a project in science, technology, engineering or maths? Did their project dazzle you? If so, you should encourage them to enter the National Science & Engineering Competition!  Entry deadline is 31st October.
The Competition 2011-12

Open to all 11-18 year olds living in the UK and in full-time education, the Competition rewards students who have achieved excellence in a STEM project.
The finals of the Competition are held each March as a central part of The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair. Teams and individuals compete in one of three age categories for a number of amazing prizes including cash sums, trophies, medals and trips abroad. The winners in the senior age category also gain the titles UK Young Scientist(s) of the Year and UK Young Engineer(s) of the Year.
For further information on specific parts of the Competition, please visit this link.

More Pictures of IFR stand at Big Bang Fair in London

Brief post to say that there are more photos of  the Institute of Food Research Big Bang Fair stand on the IFR Facebook page.
See pictures of people bravely trying the Marmite super-taster experiment, looking at their taste-buds with blue food colouring, seeing the difference between taste and flavour and trying out the five basic tastes...
All in glorious technicolour :-)

Big Bang posting

Did Big Bang Fair yesterday at Docklands. Lots of classes full of bright children
getting their science fix. We were swamped at times!

Just under 300 people did the Marmite super-taster experiment
and many more visited the other parts of the stand (using food
colouring to see how their taste buds were laid out on their tongue
and trying the 5 basic tastes and an experiment with a sweet to show
the difference between taste and flavour.
Vince Cable (Dept. of BIS - the parent Gov. Dept. of our non-
departmental public body) was about but sadly he didn't get to
visit our stand :-(

Big Bang Fair

Will be on the Institute of Food Research (IFR) stand at Big Bang Fair in London (Docklands) this week
The stand is based upon the fun / educational (hopefully both!) subject of taste and flavour.
A topic key to the enjoyment of food...

Come and find us and have a go at some tasty experiments.

It is on twitter here