UN celebrates two years of Lab_13 at Irchester Primary School

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/un-celebrates-two-years-of-lab-13-at-irchester-primary-school

​​​The events focussed on science and technology as part of the celebration of two years of the primary school’s Lab_13 (@Lab_13Irchester). The lab is a dedicated science space in the School which is aimed to drive the imagination and curiosity of the students with a Scientist-in-Residence, Jennifer Hogan, in support.

Tricia Goodchild, STEM Diversity Co-Ordinator at the University of Northampton said; “The children are wonderful, really interested in STEM subjects, enthusiastic and work hard to sustain this area not only with their peers but throughout the school.”

The University has been supported Lab_13 for the past two years in various ways and this was a culmination of all the activities that have taken place. 

The workshops that took place by members of the University included investigating the hidden world through a Thermal Imaging camera; wind-power experiments; building towers with spaghetti and marshmallows; leather as a material; 3D imaging; drawing ‘bots’ and investigating germs.

Dr Scott Turner, the School of Science and Technology’s Widening Participation and Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator said; “Lab_13 is a great idea, and always a positive experience working with them.

Dr Gemma Marsden, Lecturer in Molecular Bioscience conducted scientific experiments with the children in order to see how clean or unclean their room was.

She said; “I had a wonderful experience working with Lab_13.  It was great to be met with such overwhelming enthusiasm about science and I hope the students enjoyed finding out how clean their class room was.”

Rubbish – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle into toys!

Taken directly from http://lab13network.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/rubbish-reduce-reuse-recycle-into-toys/  Rubbish – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle into toys!  Lab13 at Irchester (@Lab_13Irchester)

by lab13network

Waleed and Jacob searching for goodies!

Year 5 students at Irchester have been working on a very exciting project with the Dept. of Waste Management, University of Northampton. Dr. Waleed Montasser and Louise Maxwell, and Bianca, Evie and Livia (Brazilian visiting students) work alongside our Year 5s to design, plan, resource and make different Science Takeaways all using reusable and recycled materials.

Science Takeaways will be a set of four science kits with different experiments for children to borrow for the weekend and try at home. They will collect data or test hypotheses and add to the kit if they think of some new way of using it.

However, we wanted to keep these takeaways as reusable and “green” as possible and didn’t want to spend a lot of money making them! Waleed had the great idea of using Phoenix Resource Centre in Raunds.

They collect clean usable waste (including off-cuts of material, wood, card),  surplus stocks, end of lines and unwanted goods / returns from industry and local businesses. Anything that can be re-used then gets put onto shelves for people to reuse. As you can see we did a great job of finding just the right things we needed!
Today, we have visited the site for the first time to collect and resource our projects. It was a  freezing but really cool place and John on of the trustees helped us fill our trolleys! What they are doing there is very good for the environment even the actor who plays Ron Weasly think so and have visited them!

Aimee and Livia are happy with what they have found!

Aimee, age 9, says “I think that this is a good place because it stops all the materials from going into landfill. It makes people reduce waste and reuse things so that we can have a nice county instead of a big smelly dump in the ground!