Event details

Join us for some family fun as we spark children’s imaginations with a range of hands-on, interactive activities. Meet robots, have fun with numbers and get crafty decorating a brain hat. Or maybe find out some fun facts about British animals or try on VR goggles?

Why not come along and meet York researchers and find out how their cutting-edge work is improving the world we live in?

This event is brought to you with the support of LNER.

Activities include:

Archaeology of Animals

Welcome to the amazing world of *zoo*archaeology. Learn about the anatomy of the animal skeleton and find out some fun facts about British animals, including their habitats and the history of their introduction to the British Isles. Can you put sheep bones into a skeleton like a 3D jigsaw puzzle? Are you able to identify which animal a skull belongs to? Come along and find out.

Art of an Endless Pattern
Did you know waves are a repeating pattern that go on forever? We’ll show you how to create your own repeating design that can be tiled infinitely. Come and enjoy making endless patterns using cogs and gears and a spirograph.

Branching Out: York trees through time

Explore our city’s treescapes and discover the connections that bind us to trees! This interactive event invites all ages to experience the diverse values of urban trees. Through immersive tools, chat with trees, design your ideal green space, collaborate in a treescape board game and uncover local tree stories. Join us to celebrate the natural beauty and impact of trees on our city’s landscape.

Engineering a Better World

Ever wanted to direct some interactive programmable robots? Then come along and join the North Yorkshire Institution of Engineering (IET) for some fun robot activities.

Making a Splash with Numbers

How good is your number sense? What can The Very Hungry Caterpillar teach us about learning to count? How many jellybeans are in the jar? Does the language you speak influence your number skills? Why are fractions so hard? Come and try some hands-on activities with researchers from the Numerical Cognition Lab at the University of York’s Department of Psychology and find out the answer to these questions and more.

Making 8000-Year-Old Pots: Archaeology and Europe's first farmers

Discover how archaeologists examine Neolithic pottery made and used by Europe's first farmers 8,000 years ago. Come along and try your hand at making a simple Neolithic-style pot and take a look down the microscope to see how archaeologists investigate how Neolithic people developed technologies and dinning habits we still use today.

Psych!York

Look out for activities including VR goggles, optical illusions, brain-hat decoration and build-your-own-neuron kits. This is your chance to learn more about psychological research and discoveries being made at York.

Rats!
Can you become a rat researcher? The RATTUS project looks at how and when rats reached Europe, and what that can tell us about how people moved around. Learn how we identify rats and use various archaeological methods from ancient DNA to isotope analysis to gather more information about them.

Seachange: Understanding ocean environmental change

Ready to uncover the deep secrets of our oceans? The SEACHANGE Project is on a mission to rewind time and discover what our seas were really like before human impact! Join us to discover how natural archives like shells, mud and bones can reveal what the ocean before humans was really like. By understanding the ocean's pristine state, we can gain vital knowledge to better protect and restore it for generations to come.

Submerged Worlds: Plants in prehistory

Dive into the waters of Lake Ohrid to find the remains of an ancient village and discover the secrets of daily life at this real-world Atlantis inhabited over 6,000 years ago. On the shore of Europe’s oldest lake, prehistoric people harvested, collected and cooked many different plants. In this hands-on activity, follow the steps of an archaeologist analysing ancient seeds to learn about past diets and ancient recipes.

Super Sustainability and Wonderful Windmills

Have you ever wondered where our energy comes from, and what we mean by 'clean' or 'renewable' energy?  Come along to find out the answers and have a go at making your own windmill to harness wind power.  We'll have other activities to help you think about what sustainability means to you all led by a team of students from the University's Sustainability Clinic module.

Explore the wonders of pollen with some amazing 3D models. Get to grips with hay fever's real culprits, unearth a fossil pollen time machine, and get hands-on with pollen in a whole new way.

Image credit: Bec Hudson Smith

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