Shooting Stars at Stanton School

Open Meteorites / June 16, 2014

On the Monday 9th June 14, I went to visit Stanton School for three presentations about rocks for Year 5 and 6 students. Rocks you say? Yes, but rocks from space! During the talks I presented the current state of our Solar System and where meteorites come from and how they entered our atmosphere. I also discussed the general effects of meteorite impacts, craters and the main collection places and campaigns. Finally, I gave a very short and general overview of what meteorites can teach us about the various Solar System planetary bodies and the early times of the Solar System. After the talk, I presented the meteorite samples in more detail. It is always a great time when the children realise that they are holding a piece of Mars or of the Moon, a planet and a satellite they can easily visualise, and these meteorites had a great success. During the presentation of the meteorites, the students were encouraged to ask any questions they might have and some of them were quite surprising. The teachers, the students, and I were delighted at the end of the afternoon.

Such visits remind us that sharing science with people, and especially children, is a great source of motivation in our work and it reminds us that we are not only working on meteorites just for us, but for everyone and that many people are still interested in space science.

Jean-David Bodénan

Spectacular bolide imaged during Okie-Tex stargazing event 2008 

(http://www.okie-tex.com/2008_party.php) (image: Howard Edin)

 

An Alien Experience

Open Meteorites / May 10, 2014

(image: clipartlord.com)

In early May the meteorites visited St Paul’s Catholic School to aid me with the ‘Spaced Out enterprise day’. During this day, 80 year 9 students took part in a space themed day where they were asked to design a space craft, astronaut suits and a create languages to talk to any aliens they might meet. I was there as the ‘space expert’ that they could ask technical question about space. While I was there I was using the meteorites to explain and illustrate what was out there in space and to enthuse the students about space science.

Beth Steer

 

 

On the road again – Geological Society Careers Fair

joshsnape / November 22, 2013

“Yesterday I took meteorites to the Geol Soc Careers Fair for university students at the BGS in Keyworth. There were many other universities there, but none had meteorites! As a result, I had lots of interested geologists (both students and people from the other stalls) coming over for a look, as geologists are essentially magpies! Once I explained what they were and what their significance was for our understanding of solar system formation processes, many people took our Open University literature and will hopefully will consider coming to the OU to do a planetary based PhD. Thanks meteorites!”

Beth Steer

Photo: NASA Dawn spacecraft at Vesta

 

2013 UK Space Conference

joshsnape / July 22, 2013

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!)

British Science week 2024 at Elsworth Primary School

During British Science week in March 2024, Dr Diane Turner (Dr Di), took the meteorite collection to Elsworth Primary School in Cambridgeshire.

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.

British Science week March 2024 at Swavesey Village College

Dr Diane Turner (Dr Di) from Anthias Consulting had the pleasure of hosting The Open University’s meteorites for some outreach in Science Week in March 2024. She was able to share these amazing rocks with children local to her office in Cambridgeshire.

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!

Meteorite collection visit brings space project to life for local secondary school pupils at Swavesey Village College

On 24th and 25th March 2022, Anthias Consulting’s Director and Senior Consultant Dr Diane Turner (Dr Di) presented The Open University’s outreach meteorite collection to Year 7 students at Swavesey Village College in Cambridgeshire.

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.