Into 2025, here’s our first Science Café – Thursday 27th March, 7.30pm at Otley Courthouse

Full details are here, on the Science Cafés page
Into 2025, here’s our first Science Café – Thursday 27th March, 7.30pm at Otley Courthouse

Full details are here, on the Science Cafés page
We’re off with planning for this year’s Science Festival, so you can put the dates in your diary. We’re planning to begin with a family show on Sunday 9th November and close out with the Fair and our last speaker on Saturday 15th. In between will be our usual enticing selection of science based events and daytime schools shows for KS1 and KS2 pupils.
Full details will follow in due course.
Plus, of course, in the meantime there will be our regular Science Cafés currently scheduled for March 27th and June 26th, with one to follow in September, date tbc.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Another great range of events and a really popular Fair day. Thanks as ever to our presenters, stall holders and volunteers who made it possible. And, of course, thanks to everyone who came to join us. Here’s a small look back at some of the activities:




















Lastly, I’m going to pick out one chart from Friday’s presentation “When Antarctica Was Green” by Dame Professor Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey. It shows the results of using ice cores to directly see CO2 levels over the last 800,000 years (well beyond the arrival of homo sapiens).

At no time over those years was CO2 above 300ppm. It is now 422ppm. She said that in the past, when it was above 400ppm sea levels were 5-10m higher than they are now…
You can find more photos from this year and from past Festivals on our Flickr group at https://flic.kr/g/gvMsL
Who wants the holiday season to end? Some do, some don’t, but we do bring you a compensation because here comes the September Science Café. Here’s our lovely poster and you can find all the details on the Science Cafés page.

Things can only get better… maybe. No, let’s be positive. Long summer days are nearly here and so is the June Science Café. Below is the poster, or you can follow the link for all the information on the Science Café page

Here’s a quick look back at some bits of this year’s festival. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen, the Courthouse, all our excellent presenters and of course you, the people who came.
















And so on to 2024, starting with our first Science Café on Thursday March 14th. You can find all our dates for the year on our calendar page here.
Another great, packed Festival week with top speakers on diverse topics (family show Ultimate Dinosaurs; When the Antarctic Was Green with the Director of the British Antarctic Survey; an exploration of Roman medicine and BBC Science presenter Adam Rutherford on Control about eugenics), another Science Quiz (with food option), a Science Café, and something different – a Friday evening introduction to cheese science, with tasting!
Plus our popular, family oriented, free Science Fair (Saturday 10-4) is bigger than ever, overflowing into the Bridge Church and Otley Library.

All the info you need in on the Festival 2023 page
Summer moves on, can September be coming already? It must be so, so here’s our next Science Café

As ever, full details can be found on the Science Cafés page or you can click/tap here to go and buy tickets directly
We’ve been working at it for quite a while and now have confirmed another great line up for this, our 15th Science Festival.
Once again we have a set of great speakers on diverse topics, another Science Quiz (with food option), a Science Café, and something different – a Friday evening introduction to cheese science, with tasting! Plus, of course, a series of daytime schools shows.
In addition the popular Science Fair (Saturday 18th) will be bigger than ever – we have expanded into an additional venue, the nearby Bridge Church, to provide more space for activities, stalls and workshops. Not to be missed!!
You can find the full schedule here on the Festival 2023 page. As we write there are a few session details to be added, plus we’re not yet selling tickets. But watch this space and all will be complete soon 🙂
To keep our regulars (thank you all!) on their toes the first Science Café of 2023 is forsaking it’s usual Thursday evening slot and instead will be on Friday 17th March
Here’s the poster:

The full details of each talk can be found on the Science Cafés page or you can go straight to the Courthouse site to buy your tickets here