There’s a travelling planetarium from Dynamic Earth, and some recycling and sustainability activities from local youth groups and the Scottish Seabird Centre as well. You can build a mammoth skeleton with the people who found a mammoth graveyard. You can look through a telescope, and a spectroscope to study the light from the stars – and carry out a mission to Mars.

Visit the Orkney Future section to find out about the work of a range of hi-tech companies very active in Orkney – Thistle Wind Partners with their offshore wind plans, Orbital Marine Power with tidal energy, Solar Dynamix with solar power, EMEC with wave and tidal power testing, and Kyloe Partners with computer coding

You can also learn how to control robots – and see a 2,000-year-old computer model. Find out about the science of bushcraft, and the skills of recycling. Explore a kelp forest in virtual reality, and the open sea with whales and dolphins. Make a cloud chamber – and model a virus. Find out about Orkney native wildlife. Test your senses of taste and smell.

And there is even more to come! This is looking like being our biggest Family Day yet.

You can choose your visiting time. There are morning tickets for the session from 10.00 to 12.30; or afternoon tickets for the session from 1.00 to 3.30 pm.

Ticket prices are £9 & 6 with planetarium, or £7 & 5 without.

With the tickets that include the planetarium there is a choice of three different shows.

– 10 am: What’s Up – a look into the night sky with some of the latest news stories of earth and sky. BOOK HERE
– 11 am: Don’t Panic – stories of ancient catastrophes of fire and flood. BOOK HERE
– 12 noon: You are Here – a dramatic journey to the very edge of our solar system and back, following the past of several very special space missions. BOOK HERE

– 1 pm: What’s Up – BOOK HERE
– 2 pm: Don’t Panic – BOOK HERE
– 3 pm: You are Here – BOOK HERE

Tickets without planetarium:

Morning session (10 am – 12.30 pm) – BOOK HERE
Afternoon session (1 – 3.30 pm) – BOOK HERE

There are also various workshops taking place on the Family Day for which you have to book when you arrive, with no additional cost. These include:

Making a Cloud Chamber. This is delivered by Dr Alan Walker of Edinburgh University and is supported by the Institute of Physics in Scotland. Workshop times are 10 am, 11.45 am and 1.45 pm.

Connectivity and the Internet of Things Workshop. This is delivered by FarrPoint in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Explore the world of mobile connectivity where you live, learn about mobile technologies such as 4G and 5G and check their signal strengths, test some smart Internet of Things solutions and even learn to map 4G using a device we invented. Plus meet the inventor himself! Workshop times are 11.30 am, 2.30 pm.