As part of Alsop’s British Science Weeks celebrations students have had the opportunity to get their hands-on rare samples of moon rocks and meteorites which were truly out of this world!!!

These rare samples were provided to school through a project called ‘Borrow the Moon’ by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) which provides educational packs in a bid to inspire young people in Science.

The meteorite samples and NASA Moon rock discs were used in special lessons, given students the unique opportunity to touch a piece of a space rock not of this Earth as they handled genuine meteorites.

The pack provided by STFC included a 1.2bn year old piece of Mars rock and 4.3bn year old nickel meteorite. It is unlikely that children will ever get the chance to hold an object older than this, as Earth itself was formed 4.6bn years ago.

The lunar samples that we received were collected in the late 1960s and early 70s during some of NASA’s first manned space missions to the moon.

The lessons have proven to be thought provoking and inspiring!

M. Mulvaney