ExpeRimental at Princess Alexandra Hospital

The children’s ward at Princess Alexandra Hospital was transformed into a fun laboratory during a visit by the Ri's ExpeRimental team.

Patient Oliver having fun with ExpeRimental activities
Royal Institution

News

The Royal Institution’s ExpeRimental team hosted an afternoon of exciting workshops for young patients and staff at Princess Alexandra Hospital as part of this year’s British Science Week.

We ran a variety of hands-on activities involving balancing sculptures, a kitchen paper colour quest and a fizzy cubes experiment to help bring to life key scientific concepts. Activities took place in the hospital’s play area and at the bedsides of those young patients who were unable to leave the ward.

The workshops were part of the second series of ExpeRimental, which aims to kick-start a revolution in science learning by supporting and empowering parents to do exciting and easy science activities at home with young children.

Free online films and accompanying information sheets are also available to give parents and carers the confidence and ideas to explore, question and test some of the fundamentals of science with children aged four to nine.

PAH Play Specialist, Rachel Naunton, said: “All the children thoroughly enjoyed the day. The Royal Institution staff were able to adapt the experiments to the different ages of children which was brilliant.

“It was both educational and exciting for the children and it was lovely to see the smiles on their faces. Being in hospital is tough for anyone, but for a child it can be even more stressful, so this was a wonderful way to distract our youngsters while enabling them to learn at the same time.”

Dr Gail Cardew, Director of Science and Education at the Ri, said: “For 200 years the Royal Institution’s mission has been to encourage people to think more deeply about the wonders and applications of science.

“With ExpeRimental, our ultimate goal is to help parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, health workers, foster parents and childcare professionals to spark the natural curiosity of children at an early age and to set them on a lifelong course of scientific exploration and investigation.

“We want ExpeRimental to be accessible to all families and young children and so we are delighted to have the opportunity to partner with The Princess Alexandra Hospitals fantastic play team and to bring our activities to their young patients, staff and families.

“This partnership with the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust is a very important step in helping us achieve these aims." 

The Royal Institution is closed 19 March

The Ri is closed this week on Tuesday 19 March.