SCIENCE YEAR NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 33 Week ending Friday, 7th September 2001 It’s happened – Science Year has officially launched! It happened at 11am on Friday 7th September, when two months of organisational midnight oil-burning paid off, with a glitch-free, multi-media extravaganza, satellite linked between eight venues across the UK. For the full rundown and pictures, go to launch day diary. THE GIANT JUMP The Giant Jump experiment was the centrepiece of the event, and there was an eleventh-hour surge in registrations in the 24 hours before it was all due to start. This brought the total number of schools involved to over 5000. (If you jumped but haven’t registered yet – make sure you do, so that your school can be included in the total. Go to the registration page) And for the initial results of the experiment, go to Giant Jump Results. CALLING ALL WORLD RECORD BEATERS But it wasn’t only a scientific experiment, it was a double world record attempt as well – and a double success was achieved – so congratulations to everyone who took part. Make sure you send in your Guinness World Record Witness Statements so that your school can be included in the official total (and be sent your official Guinness certificate). THERMO-QUIZ And talking of hot things... the Thermo-Quiz is now officially closed to new entries. We received hundreds of entries, but the only one with 10 out of 10 correct answers was Peter Ericson who emailed from Sweden. Congratulations Peter!! Peter and all ten runners-up will be notified by email shortly and their prizes will be despatched to them asap. And if you took part but didn't win, you may like to have a peek at what the correct answers were on the Science Year website. FRIENDS OF SCIENCE YEAR And so to a more serious annoucement ... Science Year has Friends. And by 'Friends' we mean extremely generous sponsors who have decided to invest significantly in a range of projects and activities for Science Year, in cash or in kind. These sponsors are: Intel, Oracle, Pfizer, New Media and BAe Systems. Thank you all - we really appreciate your support. Details of the very tangible results of this support will be publicised soon. Meanwhile, we'd also like to extend special thanks to the BBC, BioRad, Digital Brain, Promethean, Apple Computers, AstraZeneca Science Education Trust, BNSC, Channel 4, EMAP, NGFL, The Nuffield Foundation, Shell, the Times Educational Supplement and the Wellcome Trust who have provided invaluable additional support. TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHING SCIENCE And so to teachers... The ICT Training Centre at Oundle School, Peterborough, is proud to announce its first TECHNOLOGY for TEACHING SCIENCE day for teachers, Monday 24th September 2001. The day is designed to help teachers at secondary and college level, and a team of nationally recognised tutors has been assembled for the day. Teachers from all over the UK are expected to attend a day of presentations and hands-on computer and calculator workshops. There are still a few places left, so if you're interested visit their website: http://www.argonet.co.uk/oundlesch/ and follow the TTS-1 link. HUNT FOR ROLE MODELS So you have what it takes to be a scientific role model? Scientists and engineers are needed to join PROFILE, a national campaign to raise awareness of science and engineering amongst 16-19 year olds. The key questions are: do you have an interesting job? Do you make use of science in an unusual way? And most importantly can you inspire young people and communicate positively with the media? If the answer to these questions is yes then contact Addy Hardcastle on addy.hardcastle@aeat.co.uk or fax him 01235 436551 for a questionnaire and more information. It could be you! FANCY WORKING AT LONDON'S SCIENCE MUSEUM? The Science Museum in London have asked us to publicise the following vacancy. Project Manager - Science Year Curriculum Review, £20,000 pro rata -Temporary post for 8 months - Oct 2001 to May 2002 As a particular initiative for Science Year, the Science Museum is organising a national consultation process for students aged 16-19. They will be invited to express their views on the Science National Curriculum and make positive recommendations for development of the science curriculum in schools. It will be your responsibility to manage and deliver the consultation process, organise the national events, and produce a written summary of the recommendations for printed media and web. Committed to ensuring the process is student-led, you will establish an effective rapport with post-16 students, and be creative in generating ideas. An excellent communicator - orally, in writing and by electronic means - you are IT and internet literate, and can work equally well as part of a team or independently. The consultations will be conducted through a series of regional focus groups/forums and on the internet, therefore you must be willing to travel throughout England to support the development and delivery of these events. With a background in science or education, familiarity with the Science National Curriculum and experience of organising events - this is a great opportunity to combine your knowledge and talents in one high-profile project. Please email your CV and covering letter to: a.bright@nmsi.ac.uk or write to: Allison Bright, Personnel Department, Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD by 19th September 2001. If you have not heard by 28th September 2001 you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion. www.sciencemuseum.org.uk LAUGH? I NEARLY SUBMITTED A RESEARCH PAPER... Science Year's key partners, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (The BA) have been hosting their annual science-fest this week in Glasgow. And to coincide with this, they've launched a huge national experiment called Laugh Lab - a scientific quest to find the country's funniest joke. This is how it works. You visit their website and submit your funniest joke. Then while you're there, judge some other people's jokes on the 'Laughometer' (technical piece of kit, only found in extremely well-funded labs!) You'll also be asked a few factual questions about yourself, and a few brain-teasers aimed at finding how your mind works. The aim of the whole project is to find out more about eg. age and gender differences in joke appreciation, and whether - as Ken Dodd has always claimed - people in different parts of the UK find different things funny? Every month, the BA will let us know the funniest joke so far - and the complete results will be revealed in September 2002. OK here goes for funniest joke in September: Two fish in a tank, One says to the other, "Any idea how you drive this thing?" Er, now YOUR turn: http://www.laughlab.co.uk RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK Apart from the Laugh Lab website ... this week's recommended website of the week is http://www.the-solar-system.net/ It's full of pictures of all the planets - and quizzes about them. Have a look and let us know what you think... And thank you to Alwyn Botha for suggesting it to us... and please send in your favourite site - we're building up a store. JOKE OF THE WEEK And back to the jokes ... two biological ones this week, well sort of.... A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet, he says; "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?" "Well," says the vet. "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down." "What? Because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really heavy." Thank you very much Ped Saunders! And ... Q. What do you call a chicken in a shellsuit? A. An egg. Ah... they don't come much funnier than that. Or DO they?? Let us know! ANY OTHER BUSINESS As ever, we welcome contributions to the Newsletter, whether about events, queries, ideas, recommended websites or hilarious jokes. Drop us a line any time, the email address for all such communications is: anne.mcnaught@scienceyear.com Bye for now - have a great week. Return to archive