Last Saturday afternoon, 17th May proved a warm, delightful few hours for our experimental Science, Faith and Climate Change event at St Mary’s, Fen Ditton, on the Eastern edge of Cambridge. The Faraday Institute, Schools and education team, provided fascinating insights into Fossils and faith, Our bodies in all their Godly complexity (children could make DNA bracelets and the fascinating nature of non-Newtonian liquids intriguingly demonstrated. The explanations of various sciency things were much appreciated by those who visited.
Meanwhile, outside in the churchyard, a sequence of Eco-themed sideshows provided entertainment and hopefully some education and HOPE for the young people present (and, later, for the older helpers, too)
Here is one of the sideshows entitled post-event, ‘Do You give a Toss?. You can see a beanbag which, having been tossed, didn’t quite make it to score on the right-hand side.
Fen Ditton Children’s Science, Faith and Climate Change Afternoon .
The Outcomes by Trevor Thorn
Saturday May 17th was kind to us in weather terms as those who came were able to enjoy an imaginative collection of Eco-themed outdoor sideshows. In the church. Indoors, the Schools and Education team from The Faraday Institute provided a fascinating array of ‘stations’ which included a spectacular collection of fossils, an opportunity to make a DNA bracelet and the wherewithal to make a suet-ball birdfeeder as a tangible expression of encouraging the bird-life in our gardens.
It would be dishonest to say that we were besieged by children from the three schools in which we promoted the event but there has been a promising development around the sideshow collection. The picture of the most popular of these, which will now be renamed ‘Do You Care a Toss’ will give a sense of what we might now regard as a prototype for a Mini Eco Fayre which we can offer to schools and other churches as a package. We will put the stalls into a nearby storage facility, so they are readily accessible and seek further support from the Cambridge Schools Trust to finance this second step of our Eco-venture.
One of the important elements of the display was to give children HOPE that Climate change need not be the disaster story that is all too constantly in the media. In order to make this message clear, a two sided slip was prepared, one side addressed to children and the other to their parents or carers. Here, for your interest are the two texts
Parents & Carers
OUR SIDESHOWS
The aim of our sideshows is to give children a sense that Climate Change is not the threat it is sometimes made out to be.
New clean technologies are developing all the time and are now attracting big investments, notably the TOKAMAK, a nuclear fusion generator which can generate huge energy output without nuclear waste, and is due to come on-line early 2030s. A TOKAMAK has attracted $2billion in investment (Source CNN) which might otherwise have gone into dirty energy production.
It does not take a lot of thinking to realise that investors will soon wake up to the idea that the future has to be one of clean, green, technologies and that money will move from dirty fuel generation into these far more attractive investment areas. The sideshows imply this message and are, thus, designed to give your children and teenagers HOPE – a vital message for their generation
And HOPE is also the greatest message of the Christian church.
Thank you for reading this
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Message for Children about our SIDESHOWS
Please have fun on our sideshows.
As you try to win tokens for prizes you will be helping to raise money for remote villages in Africa who will be helped to build solar lighting to avoid using dangerous fuels, like kerosene.
If you look at the sideshows carefully, you will see that clean, green ways of generating energy score much better than the dangerous dirty fuels that have been part of your mum, dad and grandparent’s history.
Clean, green ways of making power are getting better all the time and the world is waking up to that fact.
In the not too distant future, lots of people will want to put money into supporting these clean methods rather than the old ways – and then Climate change will not be as bad as some people say.
So why not talk to the older people of your family and ask them to consider Solar panels, Heat pumps and electric cars if they haven’t already. That could be YOUR way of helping this change happen
Let’s hope this next step proves to be a positive one in our efforts to link the church to concern for the issues of climate change and the effects this is having on some children.
Another sideshow will feature in our next post.
IT IS NOW THE INTENTION THAT THE SIDESHOW EQUIPMENT IS PUT INTO STORAGE IN THE CAMBRIDGE AREA AND CAN BE MADE AVAILABLE TO ANY CHURCH OR SCHOOL THAT WOULD LIKE TO RUN A MINI ECO FAYRE OR INCORPORATE THEM INTO A LARGER EVENT (SUCH AS A VILLAGE FEAST).
WE ALREADY HAVE 2 PROSPECTIVE USERS!
IF YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THIS POSSIBILITY AND WOULD BE ABLE TO COLLECT AND RETURN UP TO 5 STALLS (BEING SUPPLEMENTED PRESENTLY AND SHORTLY 10 WILL BE AVAILABLE), Email crossandcosmos@gmail.com Head your enquiry ’Side Show information and start ‘Hello Trevor Thorn’
I hope this might be of interest in raising the profile of the anxiety some young people are experiencing, and help them to find someone to talk to, who will allay their fears with a confident message that dirty dangerous fuels must be abandoned - for the world’s sake. And that they can play a part in bringing this change about.
