A charity is using educational aids and exhibits to help people better understand the natural world, writes Peter Thompson
You might not think there's much of a connection between Croke Park and Addis Ababa, but Science Projects, a very unusual British organisation, would prove you wrong. Science Projects, which is based in west London, is a charity devoted to spreading scientific knowledge, and Croke Park and Ethiopia have examples of its specially built interactive science exhibits, which aim to help people better understand the natural world.
The Addis Ababa exhibits were part of a travelling show that Science Projects brought around east Africa for the British Council and that, at the Africans' suggestion, the council agreed to donate as the nucleus of Ethiopia's National Science Centre.
In the case of Croke Park, about six years ago the GAA decided it wanted an exhibit in its new museum that would demonstrate football and hurling skills. So Science Projects designed an electronic hurling and football alley.
Youngsters fire balls against a screen on a back wall that is broken into four sections, with scores of differing values notched up on an electric scoreboard.
The exhibit is a hit, and not just with the youngsters. "It's the most popular exhibit in the museum," says Paul, the tour guide and demonstrator.
Science Projects also designed and installed four other displays in the museum, dealing with ball-catching skills, balancing skills, co-ordination for handball and height-jumping skills. The exhibits reflects Science Projects' basic philosophy of keeping it simple.
Its founder and managing director, Steve Pizzey, a science graduate of Sheffield University, puts the emphasis on accessibility in describing how his team's projects come to fruition.
"Science Projects has done exhibits for science museums on big projects like dam building, for instance, but it's not as po-faced as that. The idea is not to teach science but to expose young people to it. The emphasis is on exploration, discovery."
One exhibit for the UK Wetlands Trust's facility at Barnes, in west London, showed how animals see things. The display features big model insect heads that visitors can put their own heads into to see the world around us as animals and insects see it.
Science Projects has completed projects for museums and science centres all over the world. It works by discussing a potential project with a client, then custom-building it at its workshops, in Hammersmith.
Science Projects has also restored, and now operates, the former home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux, near Eastbourne in west Sussex, which is open all year round.
Science Projects' workshop is a converted church where bits of metal and wood sheeting, hundreds of tools and graphic materials all jostle for space.
The charity's latest creation is what Dave Price, the workshop manager, calls a food factory - a project on photosynthesis for the science centre at Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates.
"We've broken up the elements of photosynthesis in plants, which is a fairly complex chemical process. This involves the production of sugar, a food for the plant and oxygen as a by-product.
"We've tried to make it into a Jules Verne-type machine with pipes and ducts coming into a central unit where the operator can control the amount of sunlight, carbon dioxide and son on working on plants."
As well as making objects to order and running the observatory, Science Projects has a travelling exhibition, the Discovery Dome - "basically a science centre in a tent," as Steve Pizzey puts it - and produces science notes for teachers to accompany each of its exhibitions, some of which can be hired.
You can find out more about Science Projects by visiting www.science-projects.org