Last Friday, ICG participated in the annual “Bright Sparks” day, hosted by the Portsmouth Grammar School. This is organized to be an exciting day of fun and discovery aimed at specially selected Y2 and Y4 students (age 6/7 and 8/9) from Primary and Junior Schools across the city.
ICG has participated in this event for the last 3 years, taking our Astrodome along to run a session for the Y4 pupils. This year, the dome was run by Dr. Karen Masters, with help from two of Portsmouth’s physics undergraduates – 3rd year Charlotte Lister, and 1st year Wiktoria Kedziora.
Wiktoria, Charlotte and Karen with the ICG astrodome at the Bright Sparks event.
Passing through the dome were four Y4 children and a teacher from each of the following local schools (which represent a mixture of independent and state run schools from across the city): St Jude’s CofE Primary, St John’s Rowlands Castle, Copnor Junior, Lyndhurst Junior, Churcher’s, Highbury, Langstone, Castle Primary, Portsmouth Grammar Juniors, Milton Park, Wimbourne and Fernhurst.
We collected feedback from these children, asking them “What was their favourite part”, and “What did you learn”. The below wordl shows the collected responses.
World of Feedback from Bright Sparks Astrodome shows
We finished off a busy day by running two further shows for groups of PGJS students, from both Y5 and Y6.
Any teachers interested in booking our astrodome (which we normally target for secondary school visits) can see more details of this and our other schools outreach here; to book contact ICG Outreach Officer Jen Gupta (jennifer.gupta ‘at’ port.ac.uk). ICG members interested in learning how to run astrodome shows should also contact Jen.
