Marty Jopson from Otley Science Festival visits South Leeds
What surprised me most about my visit to the Hillside centre in Beeston, South Leeds on the 12th December was how posh the place was. I’m not sure what I expected, but nothing so grand or so extensive. I had been invited, By South Leeds Community Radio to come and perform a couple of short science shows to the assembled throng at the Christmas fair, their first S-Factor event.
So, I came up with a slightly spurious narrative that allowed me to do lots of cool and silly science things on the stage. My basic premise was that these were the things I would be doing on Christmas – not to entertain the kids, but for my own enjoyment. I started with mucking about with oobleck – a word invented by Dr Seuss that now has come to mean what you get if you mix corn-flour with water. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid, or a dilatant that is solid when you try moving it and liquid when you let it flow gently. Kinda like the opposite of ketchup. I made a suitable mess with that, even bounced it off the wall once, but not for the second show as this makes a real mess.
That was followed up with exploding film canisters, multi-coloured fireballs, collapsing coke cans and the oh-so-cunning remote candle snuffer. And yes, I managed to weave these all into the science of my Christmas day. It was tenuous and involved an element of suspension of disbelief, but I think I managed to keep the crowd on my side.
The temptation at these events is to talk to the kids, after all surely no serious minded adult is going to mess about with corn-flour gunk. But I think they should. So, I deliberately addressed the adults and exhorted them to give it a go. I tired to give them an excuse to have a bit of fun and experience by play. Which is of course one of the central tenets of the science centre movement. The kids get hauled to a science centre, they play with the exhibits and learn something based on the interactive experience. But as anyone who has worked in a science centre can tell you, once the child has moved on, the accompanying adult lingers and has a quiet go themselves.
This Christmas let your hair down, make up some oobleck, try punching it, try chucking it about (best in the garden) and ignore the mess, it’s just corn-flour after all. Following my shows in Beeston a number of adults came up to ask about some of the things I had done. All of them said they were great activities for the kids, but I could see it in their eyes, they wanted to play with oobleck.
The S Factor 
Marty it sounds great! I never knew what oobleck was – you learn something every day! My Christmas will now be perfect as we oobleck the day away (is it a verb as well as a noun?).
I know that the South Leeds project has a strong focus on involving women in different ways. Was that evident in the audience/questions on the day? They were interviewing women scientists at the fair, as part of the S Factor, so I’m looking forward to hearing about that as well.
It’s a noun, but if you can “egg a politician” you can surely “oobleck your kitchen”. If you catch my drift.
I have no concrete evidence, but I got the impression that there were more women in attendance than men. I certainly felt I “connected” with more of the women in the audience than the men. We may get some hard data on this when we look at the questionnaire responses.