Glasgow Science Centre: Summer is perfect time to discover your inner scientist

With coronavirus restrictions easing, there are greater opportunities for you and your family to engage with science. Glasgow Science Centre reopened yesterday with a brand new gallery dedicated to developing your scientific skills. But you can also practise at home and outside. Here’s how.

Everyday science

Science plays a huge role in contemporary life; ust think about the pandemic.

Most of us had not heard of an R number let alone kept tabs on one. And now we use phrases like ‘lateral flow’ and ‘PCR’ in everyday conversation.

The pandemic has opened a window into the world of science. But beyond the pandemic, there is so much more science to uncover.

Science can be as creative as art, as social as sport and as uplifting as music. Science can even empower us.

Science begins with wonder

When I was young, my dad showed me a trick. He took a plastic comb, run it through his hair a few times then held the comb next to water running from a tap.

What happened next blew my mind. Without touching the water, the comb caused the narrow stream of water to bend. It was like magic.

I didn’t understand static electricity at that age, but that moment of wonder has already stuck with me.

The most memorable science experiences are often when they are both practical and social.

Our natural curiosity

We are all born with a natural curiosity that drives us to learn about the world around us. Throughout our lives we feed our curiosity by doing certain actions.

We make observations with our senses, we categorise things around us, we look for relationships between things, we develop mental models of how things work, we look for reasons why things occur.

These universal behaviours, which also happen to be at the core of the scientific method, are what the new gallery at Glasgow Science Centre focuses on.

Our new Explore! gallery

One of the new experiences in the Explore! gallery is a thermal imaging camera. It is connected to a screen so it appears like a full-length mirror. The camera allows visitors to see the temperature of their bodies in a rainbow-coloured image.

Visitors can give themselves temporary tattoos by holding a hot or cold object against their body and viewing the colour change on screen.

This activity is designed to develop a person’s scientific skill of observation. The heat tattoos are invisible to our eyes because we cannot see infrared light. However, the camera detects infrared light, which reveals the heat tattoo.

Hands-on learning

All of the experiences in the new gallery at Glasgow Science Centre are designed to be interactive and social, just like the comb trick my dad showed me.

This approach puts the visitor at the heart of the experience.

So rather than being taught about Isaac Newton and his Laws of Motion, visitors take on the role of the scientist to make those discoveries for themselves.

Visitors are active players and develop their own set of scientific skills, whether they are six or seventy six years old.

You don’t need fancy equipment

Of course, you can develop your scientific skills from anywhere.

You can investigate the science of flight with just a strip of thin paper, around the size of a till receipt.

Hold the paper at the narrow edge so that the paper flops down in a gentle curve. Blow across the top surface of the paper and the paper will rise.

This is the Coanda Effect, and it is the same principle that aeroplane wings use to generate lift.

Inspect an aeroplane wing and you will see the top surface is curved, just like the floppy strip of the paper. When air moves across the wing, it experiences lift and carries the plane through the sky.

So, as you venture out this summer, remember that there are opportunities to explore science everywhere. But remember to come and visit Explore! at Glasgow Science Centre.