Alison Rivett is the South West Regional Officer for the Institute of Physics

Super start to Science Week in South West

National Science & Engineering Week 2011 kicked off in the South West with a ‘Family Science Day’ at the Norman Lockyer Observatory (NLO) in Sidmouth, Devon on Saturday 12th March.  Almost 450 children & adults came along and the Observatory was buzzing throughout the day!  With a theme of “Communication ~ Are there aliens out there?” there was something [...]

2011 Schools Lecture debuts in South West

The 2011 IOP Schools and Colleges Lecture Tour made its debut in the South West region this week.  The talk, entitled ’From x-rays to antimatter’, is all about the science of seeing inside our bodies.  In it the lecturer, Dr Michael Wilson, explains how physicists design & build machines that do what our eyes cannot and see [...]

Small Science on Small Islands…

Last week over 1000 school students on the Channel Islands were taken on an ‘Adventure in Nanoscience’. Dr Annela Seddon (left) from the University of Bristol, showed how scientists can study control and matter on an ultra-small scale.  She described some of her own cutting-edge nanotechnology research and gave an insight into life as an interdisciplinary scientist working at the [...]

Wildlife thermal photography exhibition – Nature in a Different Light

A novel art exhibition highlighting the best in wildlife thermal photography returns this autumn to the At-Bristol Café.  It is accompanied by a special Science Café discussion event at 8pm on Tuesday, 9 November. The show combines some stunning thermal images of endangered species paired with beautiful conventional photographs of the same animals.  Thermal imaging is already used [...]

Physics down in Dorset

The final hands-on physics event of the summer took your Regional Officer and a bunch of cheery IOP volunteers down to the 2010 Dorset County Show.  Once again we were invited to attend by the Thomas Hardye School (a Specialist Science College in Dorchester) and the fun stand attracted much attention from children and adults alike! A variety of experiments [...]