This Event has Ended
Festival of Citizen Science - British Science Week 2020
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this event,
we couldn't have done it without you!
6 - 7pm:
Evening events begin with Stargazing in the Park - weather dependent. Buy and bring your fish'n'chip supper from Osse's Plaice, and join us in the park for Moon Rise. If weather is bad, join us in the Isobel Cafe in the centre, where Aonghas von Rycker, Astronomer and Astrophysicist, will provide an Indoor Stargazing session, to guide you on what to look for when the next 'clear sky' comes along!
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7 - 8pm:
Evening Presentations free light refreshments available, come and enjoy our incredible Guest Speakers, who between them have a lifetime of innovation and dynamic living science experiences to share with you.
Our Ground-breaking and Innovative Guest Speaker, Colin Palmer, lives a few stone’s throws away from the Homestead Solar Park in Shalfleet, here on the Isle of Wight. Wight Community Energy is a community enterprise – a 3.95MW ground mounted solar park at Homestead Farm to the south of Shalfleet and capable of generating 4,68 GWh of electricity – enough to power 1,340 average homes and save more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 over the 25-year lifetime of the project.
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Colin has been active in renewable energy since the late 70s, working first on wave energy with Gifford and Partners near Southampton. In 1988 he founded Windcluster Ltd, a wind energy company that financed and built one of the first wind farms in the UK. Windcluster continues to own and operate the wind farm in Cumbria and as Managing Director, Colin has direct experience of renewable energy project management. He has also been a director of the British Wind Energy Association and ReGen Southwest as well as a trustee of the Centre for Sustainable Energy in Bristol. As well as his position as Chairman of WCE, he is actively involved in supporting small clean tech companies such as Shamba Technologies and For Stoves. His engineer’s mind has also taken him in new directions, and he has recently completed a PhD in the study of the flight of pterosaurs!
Ever wondered why plants can catch sunlight to make energy...
so why can't we? And what if we harnessed The Wind to power our cars...or Waves to heat our homes.
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'How to Catch the Sun...' explores the world of natural energy...what is energy, why we need it and how can we catch it without harming our home...the Earth.
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...
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'The Secret of
Star Patterns’
Aonghas von Rycker
Astrophysicist
Creator of Memosky®
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Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are...
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'The Secret of Star Patterns' in the night sky explores the link between Astronomy (the study of stars and planets) and Neuroscience (the study of the brain and nervous system).
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Using Memosky® a simple interactive Sky Constellation Card Game, explores some of the relationships between Astronomy / Astrophysics and Neuroscience , a field of health and medical applications.
We are delighted to welcome Aonghas as our second extraordinary Guest Speaker! Aonghas was born in France and has Anglo-Saxon origins and has recently relocated to the Isle of Wight. Curious about everything and passionate about life, he never stopped studying various fields such as mathematics, theology and philosophy. He then headed for the stars and graduated in astronomy and astrophysics to specialize in neurophotonics (medical application).
He designed and built a high mountain hotel with a professional private observatory for astronomy in the Hautes Alpes, from 1997 to 2014. At the same time, he taught astronomy, astrophysics and quantum physics.
In particular, he taught astrophysics to students from kindergarten to university, animating the sessions with his mobile planetarium and became an international speaker. He is also the designer and creator of Memosky® educational games.
In early 2014, following serious health problems, he chose to change his life and relocated to the Isle of Wight, where he continues to work on the paths of alchemy. Alchemy is a very old study and philosophy of how to change basic substances (such as metals) into other substances at the sub-atomic level.