As the festival continues into the second weekend, and on into half term, there are more mind-blowing discoveries, questions to ponder and insights explained, for children, in both the city centre, Headington and in Cowley’s community spaces. 

Young geologists are invited to take their trowel and rock-up to Headington’s Stansfield Park to crack open history, pan for gold, and hold a real piece of the moon. At Oxfordshire County Library, youngsters are encouraged to look inside something other than books. Visitors will discover the surprising beauty of your body under the microscope.

Visitors can discover secrets of the human body over at Templars Square too as science at the shops in Cowley investigates how the body works, how vaccines keep us healthy and how to make a micro-‘catapult’ for medicines. With just a smart-phone, youngsters can peer inside our internal anatomy while The Futures Thinking Network explores the nightmares in our minds and sees how close to reality they really are.

The focus then moves from beneath the skin to beyond the sky. Fifty years after people first walked on the moon, discover what we have learnt since, and look at what the future holds for our digital selves, and consider the potential of x-rays 10 billion times brighter than the sun. 

As half-term begins in Oxfordshire, families are invited to drop by The Board Game Café to pit their wits against one another and learn about fresh thinking in old fashioned style. Families can, for example, choose to play Dr Panic – a board game reminiscent of the popular game ‘Operation’ or to save species and the human race in conservation themed scenarios.

With ‘Lights, camera, action’, Blackbird Leys Community Centre also gets involved on the last day of the festival. A planetarium dome gives children the chance to see to the far reaches of the galaxy. Other highlights include an oppportunity for children to make their own action movie on the Green Screen, to be a scientist in an on-line Minecraft environment; to trick or be tricked by artificial intelligence. Who will come out on top? 

There are also drop-in activities at the City of Oxford Technology Campus throughout the day to see how the talents of Oxfordshire scientists and engineers today are taking us into the future.

Go to if-oxford.com

Sarah Edwards