Fair success!

Saturday's Fair in Saxon Square was a tremendous success with nearly 600 people passing through the Christchurch Community Partnership Marquee plus three dogs and our oldest participant was 94 years young. As well as a great showing by the TNT science club participants and helpers we were joined by Friends of Stanpit Marsh and Genoveva Esteban of Bournemouth University and Professor Vince May.

Team CAYP, led by Jae Harris, made sure the day got off to a great start by getting the marquee up efficiently!

Through the day a range of science experiments were available; these were chosen by the TNT participants. We explored how the density of water changes when you add salt; made Cartesian divers and looked at surface tension. Inspired by monsters and creatures from the deep there was plenty of slime to be made as well as using molecular gastronomy techniques to make fish eggs and worms.

Genoveva brought along four microscopes showing amoeba and plankton wriggling around under the lenses.

Martin Madusley ran two story telling sessions in the Library and did more informal storytelling around the craft and clay table.

A full report and collation of comments will be available soon.

We've been delighted with the response and enthusiasm for finding out more about our local environment and the double high tide.

A huge thanks to all those who came along and helped make the day such a great success!

There will be a final story performance on 30th April at Ye Old George Inn, Christchurch

Monday, March 23, 2015

Storytelling on 21 March

Science Fair in Saxon Square 21 March 11am-4pm

Catch up with Martin Maudsley's developing story of the Tides at the following times on Saturday 21 March. Each session is bound to be different with audience participation a key part of the sessions.
Martin will be performing at various times through the day in the Library and also in the Marquee in Saxon Square:

11:30 -12:00 Storytime, LIBRARY
1:00 – 1:30 Storytime in the tent
2:15 -2:45 Storytime, LIBRARY
3:15 – 3:45 Storytime in the tent

Friday, March 20, 2015

Event 01 21 March

Join the Time and Tide team and the TNT Saturday Crew for some fun exploring the science in the oceans and our local harbour. They will be joined by scientists from Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth Universities as well as others involved in using, managing and exploring the harbour.

The event is free and runs from 11am-4pm and the marquee in Saxon Square will be bursting with a variety of hands on activities for you to try your hands at. 

Interested in taking a table - just get in touch with Helen@katalytik.co.uk

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Life in the sea

With the help of Dawn Powell, marine biologist, we explored the different creatures that live in the oceans from microscopic plants and creatures to blue whales. Dawn was joined by the project storyteller, Martin Maudsley who created songs and sounds for different creatures and mythical monsters that might inhabit Mudeford.

We used the sports hall to explore how deep the oceans really are -  measured in sheets of loo roll - and how deep different creatures can dive to.

Dawn also brought along lots of specimens from the National Oceanography Centre to show and plenty of books as well as books and mints to take home thanks to the In Deep run by Maria Baker. http://www.indeep-project.org/

Dawn with a polystyrene cup that has been down to the deep ocean and our graphic artist's drawing of the 'how deep is the ocean?' activity

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Project TNT-Wk2

The theme for the week was sinking and floating.  This week, the Time and Tide storyteller Martin Maudsley brought smuggling tales, thrills and riddles to Project TNT to add a different dimension to our experimentation. 

The session started with our usual icebreaker session testing our memory of everyone’s names before a game of ‘Harbour Run-around’. Then it was time for water. We made Cartesian divers for those who had missed out while Martin taught us some origami skills and explored the properties of paper when wet and dry. We then designed boats for smugglers and found interesting places to hide our goods of screws and pennies.

We explored density and how we can make something sink or float on purpose. We are still waiting for our pipettes to arrive....

We used 3kg of cornflour and enjoyed hitting it hard to squash all of the molecules together so it looked hard, but when we left items on the surface they would sink. Martin talked about mud and hiding contraband in the mud and how smugglers used their knowledge of the tides to sink boats or boxes so they could be found later, under darkness when the tide went out.

While we were experimenting we talked about the smugglers from Christchurch and developed ideas for pirates names such as Barnacle Bill.  

 

Monday, January 26, 2015

Project TNT-Wk1

A Saturday club for young people-exploring things in and around the harbour

Our Saturday club is helping young people to explore the properties of water in a scientific but friendly and semi-structured way. The session begins with ice breaker sessions followed by Harbour Run-around in the sports hall to introduce some key words including: salty, fresh, brackish, tide, river, estuary.

The session content is led by the participants and volunteers. Overall we are exploring some of the weird things we can do with water as we start to explore the oceans. There are still spare spaces!

Penny drops

How many drops of water can you fit on a penny?

Does it make a difference if you have it ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ side up? We managed to get 24 drops onto the heads side and around 15 drops onto the tails side.

We wiped some soap over the surface and repeated our tests. The water drops spread out over the penny and we could drop about 3 drops before it spread over the edges.

Changing the density of water

We did some magic tricks and balanced hot water on top of cold coloured water. When we tried the same trick with cold water on top of the hot water it mixed up straightaway.

We made up three pots of water and salt mixtures with different amounts of salt in the pots and added some different coloured food colouring. By carefully adding the different coloured water into a tube, we could keep the colours separate.

Density and sinking

We made divers in bottles of water. We used a small piece of bendy straw and a paperclip to keep it bent over then trapped the air inside the straw with some plasticine. We added more plasticine and tested if the diver would float in a bowl of water. We then dropped the diver in a water bottle, topped it up to the top and put the lid on. When we gently squeezed the bottle the diver sank to the bottom. This was because as we squeezed the bottle the volume of air inside the diver was squashed making it denser than the water so it sank.

Notes: 

Project TNT is held at Somerford Youth centre on Saturday mornings from 10:00 to 12:00. There are at least four DBS checked adults present and young people volunteering as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award. To attend contact Jae Harris of CAYP 07785 935928

Monday, January 26, 2015