Over the weekend of the 23rd October, Space Connections held two educational events called Dark Skies at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield. Space Connections are based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and offer national educational resources and support for schools and other groups in the fields of Space, Science and Technology.

The first event took place on the Friday and was aimed at Head Teachers, School Governors and people working within education. The event was based around guest speakers from the space industry, including Dr Tom Mason, Chairman of the International Planetarium Society. His morning speech provided inspiration to all who attended, as well as a fascinating interactive demonstration of Fun Science.


In the afternoon, guests were also treated to an exciting demonstration of the latest in 3D technology, as well as the opportunity to attend a planetarium and 360° Space Theatre shows. There was also the chance to mingle with the Space Connections team, get involved in a resource workshop and experience a WOW space bus demonstration session. These activities were designed to give teachers and staff great ideas and inspiration of how to get children more involved with science and space, and how to convert these ideas to a classroom learning environment. Other organisations involved in the event were UKAYRoC, the Y|E|S Net, The Star Centre, The Children's University, Bradford Robotic Telescope, Voyager Dome and The Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

The following day, the event was opened to the public. Despite the poor weather at the start of the day, there was an impressive turnout, from grandparents, to children, to students and pupils. They were kept entertained by Planetarium and 360° Space Theatre shows running every hour, Field Experiments prepared by the Institute of Physics and opportunities to drive robots on a lunar landscape! The WOW Space Bus was also running Air Rocket Workshops, allowing the visitors to build and launch their own rockets.

I really enjoyed the Martian rovers! It was great to be involved in that kind of technology! Thanks!

I really liked the outdoor demonstrations!

Sick (in the good way!) Awesome!

It was cool I enjoyed it!

Fantastic, we had a group of 20 children for birthday party and I think even parents enjoyed every event enormously. We had a wonderful time at lunch due to considerate and kind help of the staff. (Patrisa Haga)

It was clear that everybody enjoyed the day and that was great to see. Children were especially enamored with creating space art with the help of a professional artist, and experiencing the magic of telescopes provided by the Sheffield Astronomical Society. Visitors made sure that every 3D show was full to capacity, which means that over 300 people benefited from seeing the shows and took something positive away from the experience. All in all, a successful event, on what otherwise would have been a wet, dull October day in Yorkshire.

"The event was a wonderful opportunity to engage teachers, young people and the public in a variety of experiences that are often not available. The international Year of Astronomy has provided several events at which the wonders of the universe have been explained. The venue at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was an opportunity for Science, Art and Culture to come together." Martyn Chesters (Yorkshire Forward).