Pottery about chemistry and climate change crafting
Pottery about Chemistry is a project to engage various community groups with ideas in science, materials science and chemistry via local connections to heritage; the pottery industry.
Three event styles have been developed:
- Market place activity: participants engage with the project team, view posters, and design a periodic table tile showing one chemical element. The activity is suitable for all age groups, and the level of discussion ranges from what the properties of the element selected are, the role (if any) in the potteries industry, and other applications.
- Schools activity: 40 minute workshops with a short lecture segment on the history of the periodic table that focuses on how elements are formed, how they are distributed on earth, use in pottery and use in technology. A particular focus is paid to sustainability aspects. The second half of the activity is designing a periodic table tile.
- Workshop: 2 – 4 hours including a lecture on the background chemistry of the potteries, two hands-on laboratory activities exploring the structure of clay in different forms, and the chemistry of glazes, and a session designing periodic table tiles.
Funding to develop the activities was obtained from the Royal Society of Chemistry outreach fund.
Climate Change Crafting: this is a work in progress, developing ways to use fibre crafts such as crochet and knitting to visualize climate data related to human-led climate change.
- Keele Academic Lead: Dr Katherine Haxton
- Methods used: Public Engagement via lecture, workshop, laboratory experiments and painting/design/fibre crafts
- Lead partner: North Staffordshire Local Section of the Royal Society of Chemistry
- Other partner: School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Keele University
