Family Fun days - Science - at the Royal Institution

We went to a brilliant family fun day at the Royal Institution earlier this month with our 6.5 yr old and nearly 4 yr old girls. It was called "Live life in colour" and was full of colour related things to do and look at. We watched demonstrations of indoor fireworks - together with explanations of how fireworks get their colours, made sprectroscpes, tasted liquids that were the same but different colours (so how do they taste different then?!), touched snakes & a chameleon, dipped metal wire in solutions and stuck them in bunsen burners to see what colour they burned. And that's just a few of the activities.

I thought we might be there a couple of hours but we stayed for over 3. There were lots of different tables set up with things to do / look at, largely staffed by University science students, there were back to back talks /demos in the lecture theatre and a couple of workshops we didn't even get round to doing. It wasn't overcrowded either. You can drop in and out during the day.

The girls really loved it and want to go back - so my partner is taking them to "In Deep Water" this Saturday. If it's as good as the last one I can see us going regularly.

More info at www.rigb.org