Delivering engaging and family-friendly chemistry activities for all the family. Edinburgh Science Festival The School of Chemistry has a long history of delivering engaging and family-friendly science activities at the Edinburgh Science Festival. Our involvement is always a highlight for our community, with students and staff alike taking part in our programme of events each year. We run an “Images of Chemistry” competition for our PhD students to submit images of their research that match the theme of the Edinburgh Science Festival each year. Visitors to our events as part of the Science Festival get to vote on their favourite image and the winner has their image displayed in the Joseph Black Building! Solar Spark We are ambassadors for the Sun; out to educate and engage people in solar energy! All of us are completely dependent upon massive amounts of energy to go about our daily lives. Have you ever wondered how we can sustain this without the damaging problems that arise from burning coal, oil and gas…? This School of Chemistry run project aims to spread the word about the potential of solar energy to significantly contribute to solving the world's energy crisis. Head on over to the Solar Spark website to learn about the science behind the world’s energy crisis and the renewable energy sources developed to tackle it (with an emphasis on the sun, of course!). There are classroom ready experiments for teachers to bring discussion and understanding of the energy crisis and ways in which solar and other renewable energy sources can help to their classrooms. Scientist Next Door Video call with a scientist to talk about the science that impacts our daily lives and share ideas and resources. Scientist Next Door is an outreach programme created by Valentina Erastova [LINK: (University of Edinburgh), Basile Curchod, and Matteo Degiacomi (both Durham University). It was founded in March 2020 as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and is designed to bring science to families across the UK and engage them in the science that impacts our daily lives. Scientist Next Door works by holding group video calls connecting families with one of the team of over 50 scientists from across the UK! More information can be found on the Scientist Next Door website. This article was published on 2023-10-12
