Can puppets speak science? Sean Briffa’s can, as audiences will experience during Kids Dig Science, a new initiative by Science in the City at Spazju Kreattiv. The event communicates science to children through theatre. The entertaining show uses puppetry followed by hands-on interactive, science experiments so that anyone can experience how science works through creative thinking.
The puppet shows are being held monthly in Spazju Kreattiv’s Music Room, with each month focused on a different science topic. The first session, which was held recently, encouraged children to use the puppets to classify a number of new species discovered by a couple of somewhat unorthodox paleontologists. They used teeth and skeletal characteristics to unravel the mystery and decipher which animals were carnivores or herbivores, if they foraged in the Ice Age or Jurassic period and more.
The next event, taking place on Saturday, will focus on space and gravity and sees cosmologist and lecturer Jackson Levi Said, from the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy at the University of Malta teaming up with Briffa to create a fantastic journey through time and space. The show will be packed with planet hard science, humour and most of all excitement.
The show lacks a conventional, script meaning the audience can shape the show themselves, coming up with a hypothesis and testing it through experimentation. A master at drawing the kids into the plot, Briffa has mastered the art of marrying scientific knowledge with an all round awesome experience for the kids.
The shows will be followed by interactive experiments, exploring gravity and the fabric of the universe, run by University of Malta science students. Tickets are available online.
www.kreattivita.org/en/event/kyds-dig-science-3