Explorathon is back for 2018! The once a year opportunity to get the whole family involved in dynamic, accessible and fun activities that are totally free. Across Glasgow on the 28th and 29th of September, you can interact with world-leading researchers and their cutting-edge research in renowned venues across the city.

On Friday the 28th of September, from 10am to 5pm, Explorathon 2018 will be hosted in the iconic Forge shopping centre in the East End of Glasgow. Drop-in throughout the day for some fun and informative activities themed around the environment, and our health and wellbeing!

Identify visible and invisible pollution with Ania Escudero from Glasgow Caledonian University. Send your kids along a giant “sewage” pipe, to identify big pollutants like plastics and wet-wipes along the way. Visit the pop-up lab and use UV light to look at tiny micro-pollutants that aren’t visible to the naked eye. Ania’s work to develop innovative biological techniques to reduce pollution will be shared with Glasgow Caledonian’s European partners, as well as raise awareness the dangers of pollution on the environment.

Hamish Foster from the University of Glasgow will get you guessing how much of an impact lifestyle choices will have on lifespan and quality of life. He’ll ask the question “what is a healthy lifestyle?” with his interactive workshop, looking at different parts of people’s lifestyles, like sleep patterns, TV watching habits, and spending time with friends, and how they all link directly to how long, and how healthily, we live. However, it’s not all doom and gloom! Hamish will help us learn more about lifestyle choices and their impacts on health, as well as how to change to a more healthy way of living.

If you like the sound of Hamish’s workshop, there are lots of others that focus on health and wellbeing. Including the “Key to Life” game and Velcro darts game where you can play to learn about health inequalities, how they occur and their impact on our lives.

There are tonnes of other great drop-in workshops on throughout the day, including the opportunity to engage with energy research, where participants can learn the basics of renewable energy and measure outputs of solar technology and wind turbines.

There is something for everyone, and Explorathon 2018 is open to all. For more details about Explorathon, or to find out about our other events visit the Explorathon Website.

*EXPLORATHON (European Researchers’ Night Scotland) is funded by the European Commission under the Marie Sklowdowska-Curie Actions programme (Grant agreement No. 818500).