Off to the Isle of Mull for the new school year

The start of the new school year saw the AfRIS team heading to the Isle of Mull for a full week, involving five school visits. To be ready for an early start on the Monday morning (23rd September 2019), we needed to catch the evening ferry out of Oban, following a 2 hour drive from Glasgow. The first visit took us to the island’s capital, Tobermory (pictured), where we ran a selection of workshops for all 62 pupils at the primary school. Once finished, we relocated to Dervaig Community Hall for our first evening event of the trip. The attraction of cake, and hopefully ourselves, drew in around 30 members of the local community, who were treated to a session on the ‘Nature of Light’ and the ‘Night Sky’. Day two of the trip took us to Dervaig Primary School. where Scott and Chris divided their time between the two classes (total 24 pupils).

We were then lucky enough to enjoy a rest day of exploring the west coast of Mull, before relocating down to Salen village for the final two days. On the Thursday, the team had to split between Salen Primary (85 pupils) and Ulva Primary (8 pupils), which were a good 30 minutes apart. With smaller schools such as Ulva, the pupils enjoy a good 5 hours of contact time. so we were able to give a deeper than usual introduction to astronomy. Despite all the facts thrown at them during the day, they all coped really well and kept their enthusiasm right up until home time. Thursday evening saw the second of our community events, and was originally planned to be a stargazing event at Calgary Beach. However, with poor weather forecast, we relocated back to Dervaig Community Hall, where a engaged audience of 32, many in onesies, heard about galaxies, gravity and constellations. The final day of the trip saw us head down to Lochdon Primary, on the island’s south coast, where the two of us worked the full day with just 9 very inquisitive pupils; following which, we made a mad dash for the ferry back to the mainland and onward to home.