There are different types of waves: the ones we can see when we are walking on a beach, the ones that occur in everyday movement, and the invisible ones, like sound waves, that are all around us. With us, you can explore them all: Learn about our environment at the very edge between land and sea, become an ‘ocean ambassador’, watch tiny swimmers like zebrafish larvae or tadpoles making ‘waves’, step inside a ‘swing box’ and learn about balance, or join in some rapping, clapping and singing to learn about waves, vibrations and how sound is made. (Biology, Chemistry, Medicine, Physics).
Activities
Green Shores: Root Power! Green Shores will demonstrate the power of saltmarsh in stabilising our coastlines. Join us to test the power of saltmarsh roots and leaves to hold sediment in place. Muddy and educational fun!
Biodiversity and Animal Movement! A range of interactive activities to understand biodiversity change and how the environment affects animal movement. For younger visitors we will have puzzles and games illustrating some simple effects of human impacts on marine life and for older children interactive visual displays showing biodiversity change and how issues like climate change and overfishing can affect communities. For older teenagers and adults use of web-based database to visualise real data from locations around the world.
The Science of Making Things Change: What Happens during Catalytic Reactions?! Catalytic reactions happen in cars, cooking, and medicine, and are a key to reducing pollution and protecting the planet. Kids will get to experience how scientists use special equipment to study new materials, called catalysts, that help reactions happen faster. They will see the example of such special equipment that allows to see the changes during catalytic reactions, and so they can learn a lot about how it works.
Good Vibrations!
So You Think You Can Balance? Have you ever tried to balance on one leg with your eyes shut? Our eyes and ears are the keys to balancing. Kids can step inside a ‘swing box’ and see how changes in external stimuli can affect balance.
X-Ray Vision without the X-Ray: Ultrasounds in Research! Like X-rays, ultrasounds allow us to see what’s going on internally, underneath the skin. But unlike x-rays, they use sound waves rather than radiation to generate these images. The ultrasound is a vital tool for exploring the structure and function of tendons, vessels and muscles. Learn how they work and watch along on a real ultrasound scan!
Synchronised Swinging! We will exhibit a number of demonstrations illustrating two coupled ideas: how synchronisation happens with coupled oscillators, and how periodic driving can stabilise new states of matter. Activities will include a pair of coupled pendula, synchronising metronomes, a kaptiza pendulum, bouncing oil droplets, and possibly more.
Tiny Swimmers, Big Discoveries: Using Tadpoles and Zebrafish to Unlock Locomotor Secrets! Discover the fascinating world of locomotor research through our interactive exhibition. Explore live tadpoles and zebrafish larvae, examine scientific images and videos, and play a board game about the incredible metamorphosis of tadpoles into froglets. Even try your hand at the engaging computer game ‘Taddypole’!
Ocean Ambassadors! Explore the St Andrews coastline and see discover the amazing plants and animals that live in and near our oceans! Take one of our activity books and be signed off as an Ocean Ambassador by the Scottish Oceans Institute
Graph Search Problems Searching graphs for paths, or patterns within them is a problem with many applications, from planning a good route to finding a certain connection between people. A graph is a set of points that are connected with edges. The points and edges can represent almost anything, such as friendships, roads or connected computers. We research fast algorithms which solve graph problems such as finding the shortest connection between two points, or finding a whole smaller graph inside a larger one (or as much of the smaller one as possible).
Whats in space? What’s in Space? And what does it do up there? Join astronomer Dr Anne-Marie Weijmans in this interactive talk to look at planets, stars, satellites and all the other things that we can find in space. We’ll start with describing our favourite objects in space, and will then spend some time learning more about them. There will be time to ask all your space-related questions, and Anne-Marie will do her best to answer them all!
