From Monday 6 to Friday 17 February, the Festival of Science and Curiosity returns to Nottingham, and Confetti students have been hard at work supporting the organisers.
The Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity is now in its eighth year. Organised by a local education charity called Ignite!, the festival brings out science from behind closed doors and into our everyday lives, opening up conversations about what makes us curious and coming together to find out the answers to our most burning questions!
Festival Overview
This year’s festival is taking place over two weeks, with the first week (6 – 10 February) focusing on activities in schools and colleges and the second week (13 – 17 February) out and about with events all over Nottinghamshire.
The programme this year includes a Secret Science show at Wollaton Hall, where pupils will be hearing from researchers about Urban Nature. There’s also the Real Science in Schools Symposium at the Council House, where pupils will be showcasing their own science research projects. Not to mention science open days at Newark and West Notts college, workshops about pharmaceuticals, engineering and biomedical science at Nottingham College, Colonel Frank Seely School and Queen Elizabeth’s Academy, and activities about soil science, product design and kites in primary schools across the city and county.
The Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity reaches far and wide, and over the half term week, families across Nottinghamshire will be able to drop into science fun day workshops where they’ll be treated to hands-on activities about physics, plant science and chemistry, book onto workshops about neuroscience, food science and slime, as well as heading into an inflatable planetarium, see a science show and go on a walk bringing together engineering and nature.
Festival magazine – Confetti students Do It For Real
This year, our Level 3 Graphics & Digital Design students worked together to produce the festival magazine.
The magazine has a print run of 12,000 and is distributed across the city, it features articles, puzzles and activities written by scientists, researchers and experts about a wide range of topics, as well as a festival map and guide to all of this year’s events, with something to pique everyone’s curiosity.
A massive thank you goes out to: Fay Davies, Devon Fjeld-Jarvis, Robin Weedon, Jay Robinson, Cerys Szczesn, Rosie Dean, Gabriela Zmau and Felix Ramsden for their exceptional hard work and creativity designing, illustrating and creating this year’s magazine.
Over 300 hours of work-like experience went into the design of the magazine and the end result speaks for itself!
Hear what the Confetti students involved had to say:
“Being able to work on a magazine that has been published has been invaluable. The team at Ignite! have been extremely supportive in terms of allowing our creativity to flow, as well as encouraging of our different illustrative styles. Our design ideas have been just as important to them as the actual magazine content itself. Putting the skills that I have learned into real-life practice has allowed me to enhance my style and solidify my technique and ability, gaining confidence in myself as a designer. It has also allowed me to reflect on and confirm the areas of design that I want to work within, influencing some of my assessment content for the different modules that I am working towards.” – Fay Davies
“Collaborating on pages with Robin was a great opportunity to improve my confidence and communication; we’d discuss our layout plans and what needs doing, could take leadership where necessary, and could provide peer assessments to benefit each other’s work. Since the creative industry is so cooperative, building teamwork skills and assertiveness will definitely come in handy for a future in design.” – Devon Fjeld-Jarvis
Our friends at Ignite! had a great experience working with our students, they said:
“It is great for us to be able to work with Confetti students to produce our annual festival magazine. The way the magazine is produced is consistent with the ethos of the festival, in everything we do we are collaborative, aim to create opportunities for young people to develop their creativity and increase engagement and accessibility to STEM subjects.
“With this year’s magazine we have achieved this and have 12,000 magazines to share with schools, libraries and cultural venues across the county. The magazine enables us to reach a wide audience and creates an exciting opportunity for students to work with us and gain hands-on industry experience.
“This year’s magazine is bigger than ever and we could not have produced this without the skills, creativity and energy of the Confetti students and staff who helped us.”
Are you interested in studying Graphics and Digital Design? Would you like to get hands-on work experience as part of your studies? Book onto an Open Day to find out more about all the opportunities on offer here at Confetti.
