On two of the hottest days of the year so far 30th June and the 1st July, over 250 Year 8 and 9 students from local schools visited the University of Kent’s Canterbury Campus to participate in Science Extravaganza. The two days were organised by the Partnership Development Office who worked with the 7 academic schools (Biosciences, Computing, Engineering and Digital Arts, Maths, Statistics and Actuarial Science, Medway School of Pharmacy, Physical Sciences and Sport and Excercise Sciences) within the Faculty of Science.

All of the students had a taste of what the academic side to university life might be like when they were all treated to the Opening Lecture ‘The Origin of Life’ in the setting of Keynes Lecture Theatre 1. This was given by Dr Vladimir Gubala ably assisted by Dr Gaby Roch who made a representation of a comet as part of the lecture.

The students then went to two practical workshops led by each of the university’s seven academic schools from the Faculty of Sciences. These gave the students hands on experience of science activities not normally available to them at school.

Some comments from students who obviously had a great day at the university:

• ‘I got to use equipment that I have not used before. It was fun, exciting and cool. I loved it!’ Rasmina
• ‘I enjoyed everything because I’ve never learnt anything like this before’ Evie
• ‘I enjoyed today because it had a lot of fun activities such as programming robots and maths’ Eithan
• ‘I enjoyed today because it gave me an insight into university life. Thank you for an amazing day’ Ellis