On Thursday 15th January I visited Bushfield School in Milton Keynes to give three 50 minute talks to Year 5 students. I started each session off with a quick “fun” quiz about meteorites. Then gave a PowerPoint talk about space rocks that, of course, included videos of the Chelyabinsk fireball. The big event was showing small groups our outreach collection. The was 8kg Gibeon specimen was, as always, the star of the show!

While this was going on, the rest of the class were working in small groups to plan a space mission. All three sessions went very well. The highlight for me was when one of the students told me she had been to visit the Hoba meteorite (see below) during her summer holiday in southern Africa! That’s something I would love to see myself.

At the end of the sessions the staff and students were very grateful and appreciative. However, this is a two-way street. The enthusiasm that both students and staff showed as they got a chance to handle real extraterrestrial samples brought home to me once again what a privilege it is to be studying these fascinating objects.

The world’s largest space rock: The Hoba meteorite, Namibia – so big they had to leave it in the ground! (Image: David and Linda Gregersen).