Happy New Year one and all and welcome to 2016!
Last year was one of great change and progress across the Children's University network. Excitingly, we saw local CUs hosting their own learning events alongside those provided by traditional Learning Destinations. To showcase just one of these amazing events, Lucy Horsman, an intern at York CU, has written a couple of posts about York's project, 'CU in the City'. Without further ado, I'll hand over to Lucy for Part 1:
At York Children’s University we’re very proud of our
project ‘CU in the City’, which runs in conjunction with the passport scheme.
‘CU in the City’ provides a unique range of free events that combine learning
with real life experiences, all of which are hosted by our fantastic partners
from local enterprises, student volunteers and academics from the University of
York. The aim of the events is to give children another opportunity to earn
those beloved stickers, whilst learning in new and creative ways with their
families alongside them.
We ran six events through the end of November, so let’s get
started with ‘Express Yourself’, a creative drama workshop with York Theatre
Royal, ‘It’s a Bug Life’ with Buglife environmental charity, and ‘Science to
make your hair stand on end!’ with University of York Physics Department.
York Theatre Royal kicked off our first event, ‘Express
Yourself’, in the beautiful De Grey ballroom at the Theatre Royal. This was a
drama session all about expression and encouraging parents and children to grow
in confidence and gain some great improvisational and physical theatre skills!
With plenty of high energy activities and team work, it was lovely to see
parents and children spending time learning and having fun together.
Next we learnt all about York’s very own beetle, the tiny
Tansy, with the Buglife charity and made ‘bug hotels’ with all the bits of twigs
and foliage we could find. Six year old Francesca said “Learning that York has
its own bug was the best bit!” and seven year old Maisie agreed, “it was lots
of fun!”
Our third event took us to University of York for a real science
lecture, with plenty of exciting experiments including balloons, a Van de
Graaff generator, magnets and liquid nitrogen - even the adults were on the edge
of their seats! The experiments were such a success that one little boy even
asked at the end of the session, “Daddy, can we get some liquid nitrogen?” Definitely
a future scientist in the making!
We were delighted by the positive feedback from parents and
children, particularly the parent who said, “the children don’t even realise
they’re learning” – surely a great advert for Children’s University! Stay tuned
for Part 2 (arriving next week), including illusions, giant snails and superheroes - not all in the
same event…!
CU next time,
Ian
