Transition Times: 'Science magicians' will be touring the country next week, revealing some astonishing facts behind everyday events, reports Louise Holden

It's nearly science week, when students of all ages are invited to consider the world around them in terms of molecules, cells and atoms. "Science magicians" will be roaming the country, unlocking the more engaging secrets of life.

Science magician Paul McCrory, who launched this year's Science Week Ireland, is just one of the wizards touring the Republic next week. Inspire roadshows will be travelling to schools and colleges to encourage the discovery and enjoyment of science using hands-on exhibits and related activities.

"The trouble with science in school is that students and teachers are working hard to prepare for an exam, and the real fun of science does not get a chance to come out," says McCrory, who runs a company that specialises in turning science into entertainment.

"Transition year is a good time to look at the magic of science, when there's not so much pressure to follow a curriculum."

If you can't catch one of McCrory's magic shows this science week, you could try staging your own.

"Many of the science experiments that students do in class can be translated into magic tricks with just a little imagination. What some teachers have done is to ask students to research the forces at play in different science experiments and come up with ways to present them as magic."

Watch any magician at work, from Paul Daniels to David Blaine, and you are watching science experiments in action. Even mind magicians such as Derren Brown are using a knowledge of biology when they read people's body language and behaviour to predict their thoughts.

More traditional, rabbit-in-the-hat magicians exploit their knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry to amaze audiences.

In his Science Magic show McCrory takes some basic principles of chemistry and physics and turns them into spectacles of trickery. All the old staples of the magician - pulling a tablecloth from beneath a tableful of plates without disturbing the plates, or walking on a bed of nails - are explained by a little science, cleverly applied.

"There's a lot of talk about making science fun, but I think science is fun all by itself," says McCrory, whose company is called Think Differently. His school tours are part of a growing awareness that science needs a change of image - fast.

We are embarrassingly uninformed about what makes us tick, what forces govern the world around us and what brought us to where we are now on Planet Earth. Science Week Ireland is designed to remind us that we are less about fashion and celebrity and more about biology and chemistry.

Its mission should be helped by the arrival of Ireland's first "exploration station", which has just been granted funding: over the next few years we will start to see the development of the country's first science centre.

In the meantime McCrory is not the only gig on the science-week calendar. Look out for the Kitchen Science workshop, which invites students to explore the physical and chemical properties of slime, fruit and vegetables, kitchen acids and bases through a range of messy, explosive and magical activities and demonstrations.

Science Week Ireland will also see one of Ireland's largest mass experiments, with people all over the country asked to report sightings of Pholcus phalangioides, otherwise known as the cellar spider or daddy-long-legs (not to be confused with the crane fly, another insect with the nickname).

Scientists believe the cellar spider is becoming more common in Ireland, a possible sign of global warming. You can help to prove this by registering any sightings of the cellar spider at www.science.ie/spider.

Check in your local library for events, too. Science Week Ireland will bring a new meaning to the phrase bookworm when it brings the Big Bug Show to branches around the country.

The hour-long show brings biology to life as Lee Gibbs, its host, encourages children to tickle a tarantula, cuddle a cockroach and even sample a cricket.

The science-week calendar is vast: check out its website for details of the hundreds of events: www.science.ie/scienceweek. To find out more about bringing science magic into your classroom, visit www.think- differently.co.uk.