On Monday 30th September, we visited Think Tank Science Museum in Birmingham. We left West Felton at 8am, which seemed very early and travelled by coach.

Everyone was getting quite excited—looking forward to the day ahead.

“I was especially looking forward to visiting the shop,” said Y6 pupil, Tayla Morris (aged 11). Whereas, Lewis Roberts (Y5) said “I was just looking forward to being in Birmingham, as I haven’t been before.”

We noticed: lots of students walking around, trains, large buildings, busy roads, roadworks, people of different ethnicities and religions.

Astronaut Academy

We went into a lecture theatre to listen to Jenny, who was leading our workshop ‘Astronaut Academy.’

We were set a challenge to sort what we would take into space and what we wouldn’t, we decided to take: nappies, oxygen, tinned foods, walkie talkies, water. We realised that a compass would be useless because they only work on Earth due to our magnetic field and gravitational pull.

We would need to take nappies because as the rocket travels, poo comes out and you are in your suit for so long that you wouldn’t be able to take it off to go to the toilet—astronauts can take tablets to stop them needing the toilet so much.

Astronaut wee is recycled and turned into drinkable water.

Poos are released into the atmosphere—so you may think you have seen a shooting star when actually it’s a flying poo!

We learnt about the movement of earth, moon and sun (how it rotates and orbits).

We learnt about the fire triangle: heat, fuel and oxygen are needed.

We enjoyed many other exhibits, including traffic lights and pedestrian crossing, our bodies, animals around us and the shop!

We wrote this recount together and will further investigate our Astronaut Antics further over the coming weeks.