Academic Festival on Space

from Queen's Today Lent and Summer Terms 2022

QCPS pupil learns of her Ukrainian refugee heritage

This year’s Academic Festival’s theme was Space! The main corridor turned into a galactic spaceship and the Art Room held a huge planetarium. The whole College was taken off timetable for the day and every department prepared fascinating workshops to enrich pupils’ understanding and appreciation of space and astronomy. We warmly welcomed external speakers from BBC News, the National Physical Laboratory, Explorer Dome, the UCL Virtual Reality department and had a truly inspiring live Q and A session with four NASA women scientists straight from Houston, Texas. Pupils attended the day in a creative array of Space inspired fancy dress costumes, ranging from astronauts, human-sized rockets, the Moon and even some familiar characters from Star Wars!

“Today has been incredible! I loved learning about so many Space themed topics I never knew existed. I am so grateful for all the activities, as they were so creative and well thought out. We were given the opportunity to travel into Space using VR headsets, learn about the history of maps as well as the many types of endurance tests astronauts must go through to cope with microgravity in Space. I also loved the talks by the astrophysicist, Dr Rachel Livermore, and the four women from NASA. I wish the Academic Festival was every day! And I can’t wait to see what’s organised for next year.”