Open Doors Day at the British Geological Survey

To be honest, we weren't sure whether looking a some rocks and fossils would have kept our kids out of trouble for too long for our choice of "Open Doors Day" venue. We had nothing to fear. The kids loved it and we were very impressed at how much effort the BGS had put in with activities and displays for them to enjoy. In a way I envy the disciplines presented. There's usually something highly visual to show, something spectacular to grab your attention, and have available physical objects we can actually hold. Much easier to than something like cosmological concepts which I have tried, and utterly failed, to explain to my little boy. I also had a lot of fun asking questions to some of the staff, especially a researcher who showed up just how out of date was my knowledge of compuational MHD models of the Earth's magentic field. Then we caught the tail end of a fascinating talk on the future of hydrocarbon production in the UK.

We had a great time and the only criticism is that it was only for the one day, not two!

I think this shot of our daughter deciding which rock to buy for her souvenir captured the day. Our boy chose another plastic dinosaur for his collection which wasn't quite as pertinent.