A very busy morning at Pendragon School
Armed with the case of outreach meteorites in one hand and balancing the small Philae model in the other, I carefully shuffled through the snow to Pendragon Primary School to give a short presentation to the whole school during an assembly on meteorites, space and comets. I had just a 15 minute slot, so a bit of a challenge! The excited head teacher welcomed me in and fortunately we had some time for her to handle the meteorites before the children arrived. Her first question to the school, as my introduction, was what significant space event had happened in November to which there was a show of hands and many replies, but it was my 4 year old daughter in reception class who was the one to reply that a spacecraft had landed on a comet, very proud!
Diane Turner shows the meteorites to pupils at Pendragon School (photo: Carol Shaw)
The presentation began with photos of the GC-MS instrumentation in the lab and some of the reasons for analysing samples. Moving on to a picture of Earth, I asked which planet this was – there was a large show of hands, asked what Earth was mostly made of there were some interesting answers including grass, we then discussed what we needed to live on Earth, primarily air and water. Next was a picture of the moon and again there was a large show of hands with the correct answer and we discussed man landing on the moon in 1969 and the robot from China that is currently analysing the moon. There was a smaller show of hands for our next picture of Mars and the range of answers for how long it takes to travel to Mars ranged from seconds to years, we then discussed the landers on Mars and what Mars is made of. At this point the lunar and martian meteorites were brought out and the excited children carefully passed them around to have a look. Some of the children also had the opportunity, with help, to hold the Gideon meterorite. The final question was what are comets and how can we find out what they are made of? Which brought us onto discussing Rosetta, Philae and Ptolemy – a miniature version of the GC-MS instruments shown at the beginning of the presentation of the lab and why we want to analyse them.
Pupils answering space quiz questions during Diane Turner’s assembly presentation at Pendragon School (photo: Carol Shaw)
After assembly I stayed on with the key stage 2 children to look at and handle all of the meteorites, as they currently have a project on space. I then moved to the Year 6 classroom to discuss the meteorites and space in general with the older children. There was lots of excitement and relevant questions. As a final test of their knowledge and to get both the children and the teachers thinking about space, I finished my morning at Pendragon School with the quick meteorite quiz, which I’m pleased to say they passed with flying colours!
A wonderful morning, thank you to my attentative audience!
Diane Turner
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