Kids meet mini beasts

More than three hundred primary school children are visiting Lancaster University on 5th-7th April in a National Science Week-linked event to discover more about minibeasts and plants.

The event, organised by Dr Christine Taylor of Biological Sciences, will help children learn more about creepie crawlies such as millipedes, praying mantids, spiders and grasshoppers. Several members of staff, postgraduate students and technicians will run four simultaneous workshops over the three-day event.

Children from a host of local schools will learn more about life cycles, food webs and flowering plant reproduction through hands-on investigations and with the aid of video-linked microscopes and a variety of live and mounted specimens kindly provided by Blackpool Zoo.

The event, funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), MRC, NERC and Lancaster Environment Centre, is designed to give pupils an inspiring new look at the world of science and encourage them to take an interest in the subject in the future.