[Outreach] EYU event - 'Meet the experts' day

(This blog entry was originally posted over at the 'Explore your Universe' website: link. I'm cross-posting it here for a different audience, and my own records)

It’s been a while since I posted up my introduction, but I’ve been pretty busy over the last few months. Yesterday though I took the chance to break out of my normal routine, and help enthuse a new generation about science. Dundee Science Centre were holding a ‘Meet the Expert’ event for local schools, and I jumped in to help out as one of the scientists.

It was a really fun, and very busy day. There were three scientists taking part; I took along a display of telescopes and showed the visitors how they worked, and how I use similar telescopes for finding planets. The others had a display of electronic circuits being designed for use on space satellites, and a set of experiments demonstrating electromagnetism, including the ever popular van de Graaff generator.

We had four or five different schools visit the science centre, and with each split into several small groups the three of us were kept very busy. All of the children were incredibly excited and enthusiastic about the science we were showing off, and the event seemed to go down really well with everyone that attended. I had a lot of fun as well, and will definitely be taking part in more events like it in the future. So to all the scientists out there: the next time you see an outreach opportunity being advertised, make some time and get involved. You won’t regret it.