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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

What a fantastic afternoon! 13 #homeeducated children met 6 scientists and asked them brilliant questions about their research.. Huge thanks to our #homeed students and #research scientists for taking part in another brilliant ‘Meet Scientists’ event! #STEM #outreach #scicomm #homeeducation

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

🙌 Check out these brilliant comics by @andthemicrobes.bsky.social Brilliant for engaging children in microbiology. 🥳 Share with your children /students and broaden their ideas about #science!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Are you a #PhD, #Postdoc or #research fellow working in #STEM who wants to know more about inspiring children with #outreach? Join me for a FREE 45-minute online session to find out if outreach with children is what you’re looking for. welcome.sparkingstem.org/home?utm_sou...

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Loved giving out our first AQA accredited Unit Award Scheme certificates! It’s wonderful to be able to give formal recognition of the skills and learning our students have shown! We’re in a trial phase and should have this available for all our students for September! 🥳 #outdoorstem

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Beautiful day at Cresswell Crags today!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

The joy of finding a high clay content soil to use as a ‘binding agent’ in the daub of your wattle and daub construction! 🤩 www.sparkingstem.org/outdoorstem.... #Sheffield #OutdoorSTEM #Outdoorlearning

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Great teamwork and construction skills in Outdoor STEM today!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

After mastering the method to produce as much carbon dioxide as we needed, the 11-16s Outdoor STEM group conducted a range of investigations to explore the properties and impacts of carbon dioxide 👏 😊☀️🌿🧪. www.sparkingstem.org/outdoorstem.... #Sheffield #OutdoorSTEM #Outdoorlearning #STEM

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

There’s nothing like playing catch with a balloon of pure carbon dioxide to learn through experience how dense it is compared to air! Great to be back to Outdoor STEM!! www.sparkingstem.org/outdoorstem.... #Sheffield #OutdoorSTEM #Outdoorlearning #homeeducation

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

A beautiful day for #Outdoor STEM! 😊🍃☀️ www.sparkingstem.org/outdoorstem.... #Sheffield #sheffield #sheffieldissuper #sheffieldhomeeducation

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Look at this fantastic model of a carbon dioxide molecule made by one of the 8-12s Outdoor STEM students today! It even has the double bonds! 🥰 www.sparkingstem.org/outdoorstem.... #Sheffield #homeeducation #outdoorlearning #outdoorSTEM

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

A fantastic afternoon with all the Year 6 students at Totley Primary in our workshop about Linnaean Classification! The students met a weird and wonderful range of organisms from all the kingdoms and discovered how they’re classified to species 😃 #primaryschool #sheffield #sheffieldschools

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

It was wonderful to bring together fifteen #homeeducated children and eight #phd #science researchers this afternoon! The children’s questions were so insightful and broad-thinking and the scientists really helped us all to learn so much about their varied research fields! 😃

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Another fantastic day training these wonderful #PhD researchers on the ‘Effective Outreach with Children’ course! They did a brilliant job answering questions from year six students at @Totley Primary School this morning! 👏 🎉 #scicomm #outreach #science

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Fantastic to meet more #PhD researchers from @GW4alliance today for another online ‘Effective Outreach With Children’ course. Today they’ve begun to translate their complex research into engaging, inspirational and enjoyable #outreach activities for children. Looking forward to more tomorrow!

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Reposted by Sparking STEM

Francesco De Batté @francescodb.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

I'm having a great time at the online Effective Outreach with Children course by @sparkingstem.bsky.social! Lots of useful principles for making one's science engaging for younger kids

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Meet Skippy! Our Blue Mountain Jumping Spider! He likes light-bathing, eating fruit flies and polishing his beautiful iridescent green-blue mandibles! 🥰 Looking forward to introducing him to some primary school children in a few weeks in our ‘Arthropods’ curriculum enrichment workshop!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Fluorescing chlorophyll! Great work from today’s 8-12s Practical Science students! As they waited for their photosynthesis experiments to work, they extracted chlorophyll from spinach and saw how good it is at absorbing energy from light!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

The foxes feast well when we’ve been doing heart dissections in Practical Science! 🦊 ❤️ #STEM #Science #homeeducation #sheffield

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Intense concentration in 8-12s Practical Science today as they used balances, measuring cylinders, and syringes accurately, to investigate rates of diffusion! Brilliant work everyone! www.sparkingstem.org/practical-sc... #science #stem #homeed

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Today’s 8-12s Practical Science students loved watching and measuring diffusion with our phenolphthalein spheres! So satisfying to watch the pink colour vanish as the vinegar diffused in! www.sparkingstem.org/practical-sc... #homeed #science #STEM

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

A friend and I found this beautiful male chaffinch yesterday, unable to fly or walk due to a hugely deformed leg (yes that’s its leg, poor thing)! It seemed glad of the shelter and food we gave it and now it’s being well looked after at a wildlife sanctuary. 😊

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

So much fun in 8-12s Practical Science today as the students explored over twenty activities and demonstrations to learn about light dispersal, reflection, refraction, filtering and transmission! #science #stem #homeed

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

The 11-16s Practical Science students explored the relationship between spring constant, force and extension today 😀 Consistent results on our group graph, found the limit of proportionality, and had lots of fun exploring spring constants by testing them in lots of weird and wonderful ways!!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Our ‘skills tree’ helped our 8-12s Practical Science students to choose how and if, they evidenced their learning about microscopy today ☺️ With individual ‘skill leaves’ they can choose to learn & evidence skills that are right for them. Low pressure = happy learners! They all chose lots!! 😀 #STEM

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Loved getting back to our Practical Science sessions today! Today the 11-16s students developed their microscopy skills, some made slides to view onion cells and some their own cheek cells! Some learned to do microscope calculations and we all had lots of fun! 😃🔬

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

My visit to Boulby Underground Laboratory! 1.1km underground, learning about dark matter detectors like the ‘Button 30’ detector I’m standing next to here. It weighs over 50 tonnes and was built piece by piece in this ultra low radiation environment. Huge thanks to all for this amazing day! 😃😊

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

4.5 hours of fun with my boys and an igloo was born!! ❄️ 😀 Nearly called it a ‘dogloo’ but that just seemed wrong! 😂

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Halite and potash discs from my visit to Boulby Underground Laboratory, where scientists search for Dark Matter. Delighted to be allowed to take these samples home. The last time they were on the surface of the earth was 250million years ago, when all continents were just one landmass! 🤯 😀

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

It’s a beautiful day when you live on top of a hill, too high to be swamped in fog!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I’m very excited to have been invited to visit the Boulby underground laboratory on Thursday, where scientists research Dark Matter and lots more, 1.1km under the ground! It will take 6 minutes in a lift to reach! 😮 Comment with children’s questions and I’ll do my best to find them some answers!

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

So excited to have been invited to visit the Boulby Underground Laboratory next week!! 😀 Physicists search for dark matter 1.1km under the ground here! It’s the only deep underground science facility in the UK and will take six minutes descending in a lift to get there… 😮😃

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Today our four fantastic science researchers from Aston, Leicester, Birmingham and Warwick Universities met ten home educated students and answered their insightful questions about their research and what it’s like to work in science! #outreach #homeeducation #science #PhD #PGR

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

It’s been wonderful to meet #PGR researchers from Universities of Birmingham, Leicester, Warwick and Aston for another ‘Effective Outreach with Children’ course! So far they’ve been learning to focus their #outreach to their specific research and develop engaging activities for children. 😊

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Hi, thanks so much for putting this together. I’d love to be added please. Part of my provision is teaching ‘Outdoor STEM’: academic, STEM education outdoors for 4 to 16 year olds, with a specialist focus on supporting children with SEND. 🙏

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Feeling very fortunate to have been invited to the Department for Education today to share my experiences and vision of outdoor education, creative engagement and accessibility, with an inspiring selection of specialists in education, climate, psychology and government. 😊

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Excited and delighted to have been invited by the Department of Education to join their Policyhub initiative this Friday. 😊 I’m looking forward to offering input on the topic ‘Reimagining schooling in a time of climate and ecological crisis’ .

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Sparking STEM @sparkingstem.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

What a happy place this Bluesky seems to be! How refreshing. It seems only fitting to start off with a photo of some of our happy students this week learning about light energy by exploring fluorescence. 😀 # #STEM #outdoorlearning #Science #homeeducation

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