The science of my Christmas day

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.

Otley’s opinions on science education

70 adults answered our questionnaire at the Otley Science Fair last Saturday. All ages (though mostly 26 – 50) and roughly equal numbers of men and women.

We wanted to find out more about people’s science education, what they are interested in, and how they like to find out about science.

So what did we find? Well, most people said they last studied science in a formal way more than 20 years ago. Despite this, people seemed quite well informed – just over half said they knew a fair amount or a lot about science. But the rest felt they knew only a bit or the basics.

Most people said they learned about science in various ways. Lots (52) said ‘at science festivals and events’ – no surprise there, as we were at a science festival. 45 said science museums, and 45 said TV. 36 said books, and 35 websites. I won’t go through the whole list, though 24 people said they learned about science from their children or grandchildren.

The science issues of most concern to the people in Otley were global warming and renewable sources of energy, followed by eliminating incurable diseases. We asked people, ‘if science could solve one problem, which problem would you choose?’ and the same concerns came up again, with 28 people naming global warming/renewable energy, and seven illness and disease. Solving ageing, population and poverty were named a few times, and then there was a long list of ideas each proposed by one person only. Several of these related to the environment but there was also getting rid of death, helping people to live their dreams, finding life on other planets, removing greed, stopping the world from ending and more …. lots of ideas to keep scientists busy for a long time to come.

The next question was surprisingly difficult. Can you name a famous living scientist. Most people were blank at first, but 58 said yes (though three then came up with someone dead). Stephen Hawking was named most often (24 people) with  Robert Winston and Otley-based scientist (and S Factor member) Marty Jopson coming equal second, each named by five people. A total of  15 male scientists were named, and just three women: Susan Greenfield, Emily Cummins and Lisa Lilley.

Nearly everyone said they wanted to learn more about science and, very helpfully for us, a lot of people told us how best to make science interesting. Making it interactive, fun, experimental and practical appealed to lots of people. Making it relevant to current social and political issues was also important.  ‘Everything it wasn’t at school,’ said one person.

The questionnaire gave us lots of useful information to help us plan and present the S Factor activities over the coming months. We’ll run it online and at other activities to see what others have to say.