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Exploring electricity at Cragside

Before 2017, I was only dimly aware of Cragside House and Estate. I had driven past about five years ago on a holiday in Northumberland, googled the site, and made a mental note to visit next time. If I’d had any idea what lay beyond the NT ticket booth that day I would most certainly have stopped and paid the entrance fee!

In early January 2017, I pulled together all my previous electricity related exhibits and activities in order to apply for a piece of work with the National Trust at Cragside House and Estate. They were looking for a consultant to develop a new learning and engagement programme to complement the re-opening of the “Electrical Room”. I was interested because I have been watching developments at the National Trust closely since the launch of the ’50 things…’ campaign. Over the last few years, the idea of a ‘National Trust visit has changed; no longer limited to the over 50s who enjoy a scone and some decorative arts, NT visits are now all about family, sticks, wellies and mud, fun and playing. 

National Trust, Cragside House

National Trust, Cragside House schools

Setting up for school session on static electricity

One thing National Trust visits are not often about is Science. But at Cragside, the science stories are spectacular. So with my experience with electricity demonstrations and science communication, and being interested in the National Trust’s engagement with family audiences, I was excited to work with them on this learning and engagement programme for both schools and families. The first time I visited the site it was closed for the filming of The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison; which felt very relevant. The next time I travelled down (only 2 hours drive from Edinburgh!) I was able to explore the House and Estate in depth and was absolutely blown away by the beautiful environment and the stories.

There are a number of components to the electrical stories of Cragside and Lord Armstrong. After research and consideration, I decided to divide the material into three stories. One would be about understanding the electrical lamps in the library – the famous lamps built by Lord Armstrong, using bulbs just invented by his friend Joseph Swan. This involved a hands-on exploration of basic electrical circuits and bulbs as well as creating working models of the copper lamps.

National Trust, Cragside House
National Trust, Cragside House spark

The second story was the generation of electricity. How electricity was and is generated and how Armstrong generated power in the late 1800s. His forward-thinking ideas about fossil fuels vs. Renewables, and what the future looks like for electricity generation in the UK. And finally, there’s the story of Armstrong as “Magician of the North” and his high voltage experiments to create and photograph electrical sparks in air and water.

We ran our first family workshops in Science Week in March and evaluated the response from visitors. We ran another workshop and some in-room demonstrations over the Easter Holidays when I began to get a sense of the popularity of the site and what it means to local and tourist visitors. In June, we tested the workshops for KS2 with local schools. And just recently we finalised the self-guided resource for KS3/4 and interested visitors.

Overall, it was a fantastic project to be involved with. I was so pleased to be able to help the staff of Cragside to increase their own confidence with this subject matter as well as find ways to engage their visitors with the science of electricity and give a bit more of a sense of Armstrong the scientist. And I will definitely be back at Cragside in 2018, with my family, as a visitor!

National Trust, Cragside House trail

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If the world were a village….

….a hands-on educational activity for 7-11 year olds

In spring 2015, I was approached by Global Renewables Lancashire Operations Limited about the design and manufacture of a hands-on activity as part of their education programme.

Global Renewables run waste recovery facilities (recycling) for Lancashire County Council and Blackpool Council. Their education team deliver a free environmental education programme to Key Stage 2 (7 to 11 year old pupils) at primary schools across Lancashire County and Blackpool designed to raise awareness and inspire behaviour change.

The brief described an activity, aimed at children aged 7-11, which would be used in the hands-on space at their education centre. The activity is based on the book: If the world were a village (Smith, D. J. and Armstrong, S, 2003).

The book is about the diversity of people who make up the population of the world. It also details the proportion of people who have and do not have access to different resources, for example food, water and sanitation. The whole population of the world is imagined as a village of just 100 people, each person representing about 67 million people from the real world. By learning about the ‘villagers’, who they are and how they live, we can find out more about our neighbours in the real world and the problems our planet may face in the future.

Finished activity in use

Finished activity in use

Hands-on space

Hands-on space

Prototype activity

Prototype activity

Using further sources, the education team at Global Renewables also condensed the British population to a village of 100 people and found the proportions of those who have and do not have access to certain resources. This allows us to compare the distribution of resources between the population of Britain and the population of the whole world.

The activity they wanted would visually represent the concepts discussed above to help children recognise that resources are not distributed equally throughout the world or between people. They also wanted prompts for further discussion and to encourage the children to consider why this is. Resource use, distribution and management fits in with their education aims and programme which is not just about recycling rubbish.

The education team had already created and trialed a prototype of the activity. Pupils used green blocks that represent 5 or 10 people to make bar charts to compare distribution of different resources between the world population and the British population.

This activity provided quite a challenge as the information they wanted to convey is quite complex for a hands-on activity. However, they had already completed a lot of prototype testing so had some clear ideas of what did and did not work. It was such a pleasure to work with a team who were so committed to the prototyping and evaluation process. I agreed to bid for the work and brought in interactives company FifeX who also brought a freelance illustrator to the team. We were delighted to be awarded the job and I went down to Leyland to meet the team and see how their education visits worked and get the feel of their other materials and the experience as a whole.

We continued to use the bar-chart activity, as it was really popular with teachers who had tested the prototype on school visits. We re-wrote the facts and discussion points to really focus on each issue and also to elicit the most discussion and we chose a slider reveal mechanism to give the answers to these questions.

I’m very pleased with the final activities and the Global Renewables education team are too. They are very appealing, intuitive and tactile to use and I hope will form a key part of school visits for many years to come helping to raise awareness and discussion about these really important issues.

Prototype activity

If the world were a village of 100 people, how many have domestic electricity?

Prototype activity

If the world was a village of 100 people, how many would have enough to eat? And in Britain?

Make a bar chart

Make a bar chart

Slider mechanism

Slider mechanism

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Energy Lab

I am very excited to announce that the Energy Lab at the National Mining Museum Scotland is almost ready to launch!

You can read about the origins of the project in this blog post. Since I wrote that in May, we have been very busy working with our designers and fabricators; Leach Colour to create the exhibits for the space.

Roger Meachem of Yet Science CIC has worked hard with the museum staff on a supporting teachers’ resource full of pre- and post-visit activities about energy and engineering challenges. And Ryan Sturrock of Walk the Line Productions has filmed presenter Emily Carr demonstrating some of these activities for the supporting dvd and YouTube clips.

National Mining Museum, Scotland Energy lab exterior

The Energy Lab

National Mining Museum, Scotland Energy lab

Introduction

We have collected objects, photographs and film footage donated kindly by Professor Stephen Salter, the University of Edinburgh, Jamie Taylor, Artemis Intelligent Power and Pelamis Wave Power.

And we have welcomed teachers and p6/7 pupils from three local schools to try out the activities, interactives and teachers’ pack.

National Mining Museum, Scotland

Generating Electricity and Energy Changes exhibits

National Mining Museum, Scotland wave energy

Wave Energy interactive

National Mining Museum, Scotland the duck

Salter’s Duck display

All that’s left to do is a little bit of final snagging before we welcome Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Government Minister for Culture and External Affairs to open the space formally on 1st October. Then we’ll get our teachers’ pack and film clips live on the museum website and compile our post-project evaluation report for our funders, the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Let’s hope that the Energy Lab can help inspire some of the children of the coal-mining areas of Midlothian to turn their creative problem-solving energy towards engineering a sustainable energy future for us all!

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Engineering Scotland’s energy future

What do you get if you mix some of Scotland’s pioneers in the field of renewable energy with teachers passionate about primary school learning at a mining museum in one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian colliery?

The answer is – Engineering Scotland’s energy future – a project funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Ingenious grant scheme to create a new and unique space at the National Mining Museum Scotland dedicated to engaging primary school children with innovative engineering solutions for Scotland’s energy future.

The Museum has acquired the ‘temporary’ hut where wave energy research began at Edinburgh University and a number of related artefacts.

National Mining Museum Scotland, Newtongrange

National Mining Museum Scotland, Newtongrange

National Mining Museum Scotland, Wave power hut before refurbishment

Wave power hut before refurbishment

We are going to be working hard this summer to turn the workshop space into a hive of active hands-on learning for primary 7 pupils, who will be inspired by a display of wave power artefacts and related interactive exhibits to engage in engineering activities that will develop creative thinking, problem solving and team working skills all in the context of Scotland’s energy future.

The project is being shaped and developed in a truly collaborative way with engineers who worked in the wave power unit coming together with museum professionals, working teachers and active learning specialists. Last week’s focus group session worked on developing the full brief for the space in order to help our design and fabrication team, Leach Colour, to start their work and we’re very excited about the potential impact this space could have.

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