Family Events 2025
We’re delighted to say that the planetarium is coming back to the Family Day, with other activities experiences including the sights and sounds of an underwater world of seagrass meadows and ocean forests. There are journeys in virtual reality and activities including seaweed pressing.
You can learn to build medicinal molecules with Lego, and create working electronic circuits. You can find out how insulation works for energy efficiency, and how to make a bat bookmark. There is astronomy and birds and plants; and 3D printing with ocean plastic, turning waste into something you can keep.
And you can meet the robots!
How could you find love as a honeybee? The challenge is great, as fewer than 1 in 100 males ever get the chance to mate; but answers come in one of this year’s family shows. “It’s a challenge made even tougher by everything from habitat loss and flower shortages to pesticides, construction and noise pollution.”
And another family shows takes us into the world of astonishing illusions and the science of magic. “See a head mysteriously grow and shrink and a coin pass through a solid rubber sheet. Watch water vanish and defy gravity and observe metals bend using the power of the mind.”
Romance isn’t easy when you’re a honeybee, says biologist Johnathan Doran: fewer than 1 in 100 males ever get the chance to mate. “It’s a challenge made even tougher by everything from habitat loss and flower shortages to pesticides, construction and noise pollution.” In a lively presentation for family audiences and everyone interested in the life of bees, he and fellow-biologist Dr Eoin Cowie take a closer look at what’s standing in the way of love for nature’s most famous pollinators. There is a mix of discussion and hands-on science demonstrations along the way.
Find your way around the night sky in the planetarium. Learn to control a robot. Explore the sights and sounds of underwater seagrass meadows. Find out how to press and preserve seaweed. Build medicinal molecules with Lego. Create working electronic circuits. 3D print with ocean plastic. And much much more!
See a head mysteriously grow and shrink and a coin pass through a solid rubber sheet. Watch water vanish and defy gravity, and observe metals bend using the power of the mind. Dr Adrian Allan from Dornoch Academy is back with a family magic show, along with Adrian Garcia Burgos from Edinburgh University, with the science behind every trick.
