New education programme to build on success of Tim Peake mission

Thousands of children across the UK are set to benefit from a new space education partnership between the UK Space Agency and UK ASDC – Destination Space 2

Following on from the huge success of Association for Science and Discovery Centre’s (ASDC) Destination Space, which engaged over 730,000 children and adults with Tim Peake’s mission to the International Space Station, the UK Space Agency is supporting ASDC to create new space resources and to work with five UK science centres and museums to deliver space activities in 2018.

Destination Space is a national STEM programme created and run by ASDC and funded by the UK Space Agency. The first phase of this national programme ran from 2014 to 2017 and engaged, inspired and involved families with school-age children, school groups and teachers, and communities across the UK with the amazing stories, science and achievements of human spaceflight and Tim Peake’s Principia mission. Overall 733,017 children and adults took part in this ASDC programme in the first 15 months of delivery and many more continue to do so today.

This new six month programme builds on all this training, knowledge and enthusiasm for space science and exploration currently in science centres across the UK, and ensures delivery of this content continues well into the future. Specifically, this programme will focus on celebrating the science and engineering of the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the new Mars rover for the ExoMars mission, and will introduce satellite applications and the plans to enable space launches from the UK. It also will develop content more widely that can be used by multiple partners and ASDC in future projects around space science.

The programme will invite applications in January from the twenty Science and Discovery Centres and Museums around the UK that delivered Destination Space 1 - from Eden in Cornwall to the Scottish Science Centres, and from W5 in Belfast to the Science Museum in London. Five centres will be selected, and they will be trained in March to run this cutting-edge schools and families programme across 2018 and into the future.

This programme will be directed and managed by the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres who have considerable experience managing national strategic multi-partner science engagement programmes. The activities and events will be delivered in collaboration with science centres with expertise in engaging the public with space science, along with specialist expertise from researchers and UK Space Agency partners. This exciting new programme runs from 16 October 2017 until 31 March 2018.

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