The Open University had a stand at the UK Space Conference in Glasgow last week. In addition to our large model of Rosetta‘s Philae lander, we took along our meteorite collection. They proved to be of great interest to both conference delegates and members of the public.
The OU team with UK astronaut Tim Peake (who is holding our sample of Krasnojarsk!)
The session began with Diane getting the children to pretend they were planets in the solar system and demonstrating how the planets moved around the sun. The children then sat down to handle the meteorites, they were enthralled, gently touching them and passing them on. Diane told them that they could indeed one day become astronauts and travel to space and they were delighted.
They asked incredible questions such as ‘is this rock melted cheese?’ and ‘is the moon sparkly?’ They adored touching all the moon rocks and meteorites commenting on the feel of each one. We received lovely feedback from the pre-school that the session inspired their play for the rest of the day.
The meteorites were enjoyed by children at a local secondary school, Swavesey Village College, serving as excellent inspiration for the year 8 space projects. Diane gave a presentation on space via Teams during their science lesson, then over the next two days attended school in person to give the children the opportunity to handle the meteorites. These included rocks from mars, the moon and a meteorite which contains particles older than the solar system!
Diane visited 9 classes over 2 days, talking to a total of 270 students as part of the year group’s science project about space, as part of British Science Week.
Diane talked to the students about comets, asteroids, meteors, meteoroids and meteorites and how these are named. The students learned about the different types of meteorites and how they were formed.
The students had the opportunity to handle the specimens from the second largest collection of meteorites in the UK including rocks from the moon, from Mars, a tektite – rock from Earth which has been flung into space and come back down, a carbonaceous chondrite containing particles older than our solar system and an 8kg part of the large iron Gibeon meteorite.
Following the visit, Diane said: “I’m delighted to be able to return to outreach activities and to be able to go into local schools once again to share the OU meteorite collection. It’s wonderful for the students (and staff) to have the opportunity to handle the rocks. This provides an invaluable experience which they can really relate to what they have been learning about and further inspiration for their projects.”
Diane is a visiting Academic & Consultant at The Open University where she continues her disease diagnosis research from her PhD along with food, drug and space applications.
During two days in March 2018, Dr Simona Nicoara, a Research Associate at The Open University and Dr Imran Janmohamed from Anthias Consulting presented meteorites from The Open University outreach meteorite collection at two UK primary schools.
On 16th March 2018, Dr Nicoara and Dr Janmohamed visited Eastbury Farm Primary school in Northwood.
A presentation was given to 3 classes of joint Year 5 & 6 and provided an overview of Space, the Solar system, meteorites, asteroids and impact craters.
Following the presentation, the children were absolutely delighted with the opportunity to handle the meteorites.
The visit provided an invaluable hands-on experience to complement the students’ current science curriculum and was well-timed; the children had been discussing meteorites with their science teacher just the day before, following a “meteor landing” in the school.
They gave a short presentation on ‘Rocks from Space’ to the pupils of Year 2 & Year 3 at St. Catherine of Siena Primary School in Watford. This included a brief introduction to our Solar system, asteroids, meteorites, and impact craters.
This was followed by a hands-on experience touching lunar, Martian and other types of meteorites. The pupils were absolutely delighted by the opportunity to handle these and were amazed at how heavy the Iron meteorite, Gibeon, was.
On 26th February 2016 Dr Diane Turner (Dr Di) visited Pendragon Pre-school in Papworth Everard, Cambridgeshire to kick-start their project on space. The children (including Diane’s twins) were able to identify Earth, the Moon and Mars and compared rocks from Earth with the lunar and Nakhla meteorites from The Open University outreach meteorite collection.
There were excited discussions on how we can get samples of rocks from other planets which led on to rockets of course! After practicing making rocket fuel from bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, the presentation ended with the successful launch of a rocket in the playground, that flew higher than the school roof!
Diane then moved on to Year 1 of Pendragon Community Primary school with the meteorite collection to conclude their project on space. The entire meteorite collection was intensely examined by the students with the favourites being Barwell L5 ordinary chondrite which destroyed a car engine in 1965, the Waber impact glass beads and Tektite and how they were formed and discussions on how large iron meteorites like Gibeon that could have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The Papworth and District Day Centre is a charity that aims to provide social events for senior citizens feeling isolated. Dr Diane Turne...
