Greenman Festival

We are now only one month away from the Greenman Festival!!!! Things in the office are hotting up...

We have on order some really cool T-shirts, some lolly pops for the Molecules Trail – more info coming up – and the team members are going out and buying their train tickets!

Not long now.... Scott

Feedback

Today the Make-it-Molecular team are pleased to announce that all 30 kits have now been sent out to schools across the nation. As schools are coming to the end of their academic year we are excited to see all the brilliant new events that you'll be holding in the near future.

Schools received an email from the Make-it-Molecular team this week asking them for any feedback from their events. We have had lots of excellent reports of really cool events and below is a few pictures from Sandra Hayton at Stretford Grammar School doing an event called the Big Bang. She had more than 40 Year 5 pupils engaging with the Make-it-Molecular kit. So well done!!!!

In other news: Schools in the Oxford area can now have the pleasure of hiring out a Make-it-Molecular kit from Science Oxford. We have teamed up with Science Oxford to get even more schools making really cool molecules! So if you know of a school who'd like to hire the kit out then contact this website for more details: www.scienceoxford.com

Well that's all the news we have for the time being. Please keep sending in any feedback that you have via the online form, click here, and we hope you have a lovely, relaxing summer vacation.

Make-it-Molecular Team.

New Schools

Today the Make-it-Molecular team proudly welcomes two new schools to the Molecules Network. They are:

Cherwell School in Oxford, and
Oldham Sixth Form College in Oldham.

We wish them the very best of luck in their events and as always you can contact the Molecules Network by commenting on any of the posts here on our blogging site or you can email us at: makeitmolecular@keele.ac.uk.

Scott

Green Man Festival

The Make-it-Molecular team are very excited to announce that The people at the Green Man Festival that we have given us the green light to go ahead and start making plans for our Make-it-Molecular stand including the awesome Mega Mols!!!

Stay tuned for more information as it develops over the up and coming weeks!!

Green Man Festival here we come...

Molecules Network News

Twistane

Last week Diane from Wolgarston High School in Staffordshire email in to the Make-it-Molecular team telling us about her latest event at St Michaels Church Fete. Along side her were three students from the Sixth Form centre helping out 52 people making some really cool models of molecules.

She also mentioned that she got her local MP, Jermey Lefory MP,  in making a molecule of caffeine. This is a really awesome and has lead to a few interesting ideas that the team may have that other schools could implement – so well done!!!

Jermey Lefroy, MP

More News:

We have some more Make-it-Molecular kits that are going to be sent out to some new schools within the coming days so we will be welcoming them to the Network soon.

Scott


Links:
Jermey Lefroy, MP

World Cup Molecules

With the World Cup upon us I was excited to hear plans from Ruth Morgan at William Brookes School who are having a world cup themed make-it-molecular event - participants pick a country's flag and then have to find and make the molecules associated with the country before entering their flag into a sweepstake.

There's lots of fun to be had matching molecules to countries: France and ethanol, Brazil and caffeine and so on...

Molecules Network News

We've publised our first termly Molecules Network Newsletter. It contains news of activities, stories and event ideas from all the schools in the network. Highlights include:

	Hills Road Sixth Form College win this years competition for the most people to take part in make-it-molecular activities - they reached over 450 people this year!"
	Get a lolly if you make a molly" events at William Brookes School have proved popular with people of all ages making molecules at their school reunion - from 3 year olds to Granddads!

Plus lots of ideas for molecules based events - molecule building races, treasure hunts and more...

Trentham Gardens

A view over the Italian gardens at Trentham Gardens

Good morning everyone Scott here, just giving you an update of the event that happened over the weekend at Trentham Gardens.

The weekend itself went really, really well. We had lots and lots of people coming into the tent and exploring the world of molecules and many tired to build some for themselves. The weather held up and Saturday was our best day – very sunny with only a slight breeze. Sunday on the other hand was a little different with overcast of clouds and a few spots of rain, it wasn't until I left at 3pm when it really poured down with rain and poor Graeme and Josh got absolutely soaked.

Our tent was right next to the models already present, Carbon Rapture, and as people came into the gardens via the entrance, they were curious as to why we were there. Once they came inside we got them stuck into building some molecules. Many built the Fake Tan molecule and Graeme explained to them why this molecule makes people's skin brown and how this process links in with chicken being cooked. Below is a photo of Graeme showing some children how to build their molecules.

When people had finished building their molecules we took their photo which they are now able to obtain by viewing our Flickr site, see link at the bottom of this post or in the links section to the right. 

What's really cool is how many people were really interested in why the Make-it-Molecular team had a stand there – so we pointed out our Carbon Rapture models in the gardens and the new DNA model to go and take a look at. Below is a picture taken on Thursday once we completed the DNA model. It looks truly amazing and what's more great is that it looks apart of the rose arch way as if it belongs there.

So that was the weekend at Trentham Gardens. There are lots and lots of photos on our Flickr site so go and have a look at them....

Have a lovely day and I'll post back with any news as and when it comes in.

Scott.

Links

Flickr - our photo site

Trentham Gardens

Updates

So much has happened this week that todays post is jam packed with exciting new stories. One of which is an exciting new addition to the team and a goodbye/good luck for another member of the team.

This week we welcome Scott Sneddon to the Make-it-Molecualr team. Scott is an undergraduate at Keele University currently studying chemistry with biochemistry and about to enter his final year. He has won Outstanding Contribution to the Placement Project in the Widening Participations and Life Long Learning department Keelelink in May 2010. He will be keeping this news blogging site up to date with all the news stories that are happening within the Network and keeping you informed of any exciting events that are happening in the future.

Also this week we say our good byes and good lucks to Dr. Tess Phillips as she finishes this week for maternity leave, but don't worry she will be back very soon. We wish Tess and the baby all the best for the future.

The Make-it-Molecualr team are out and about this week installing a new model at Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire. The model is a sequence of DNA that corresponds to the exon section from chloroplasts in plant cells which is the coding region. This sequence encodes for a tRNA-Glu.

The photo above is all the DNA bases laid out in the lab after being cleaned and sorted out into their base paring – G with C in one area and T with A in another.

On Thursday the team went along to Trentham Gardens to begin building up the DNA sequence in the rose archway. The team are there to open up the new garden season at Trentham Gardens on Saturday, June 12 from 10am onwards and we're back again on Sunday, June 13 from 10am. We'll be helping people make some really cool models of molecules and taking their photo too. So why not come down and see the awesome DNA model and have a go at building a molecule.

After the event all of the photos and information will be posted here first with a summary of the day.

The team has just signed up to the photo viewing site called Flickr to show case all of the photos that we take at events. Our photo section is pretty much empty at the moment but after the event at Trentham Gardens we should have some quite interesting photos. We'll provide you with a link on Monday so you can have a look at all the photos.



Thats about it! Please feel free to comment on any post and contact us at the usual email address should you have any questions: makeitmolecular@keele.ac.uk

Make-it-Molecular team

Science Week 2010

 This year's Science Week (12-21 March) celebrates the biodiversity of life on planet earth. Lots of the molecules in the Molecules Network kits are made or inspired by nature. For example the flavour of vanilla comes from the vanillin molecule, extracted from the vanilla pod. Colours like the indigo used to dye jeans were originally extracted from plants such as woad, before being made synthetically on commercial scales. Many medicines have origins from molecules extracted from plants - such as aspirin, which is made from salycylic acid, isolated from the bark of the willow tree.