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Earlier this week, members of the Faulkes Telescope team were lucky enough to visit scenic North Wales and work with teachers and students from the area for two days.

On Monday, Dr Paul Roche (ESERO-UK Space Ambassador for Wales) and Dr Sarah Roberts (Faulkes Telescope Project) ran an 'Astronomy in your classroom' teacher training workshop at St Asaph's OpTIC Technium facility. The workshop, arranged by Careers Wales North East, was attended by 16 teachers from across the region, and two members of Techniquest Glyndwr's education team.

The one-day workshop aimed to introduce secondary school teachers to using robotic telescopes and astronomical images in the classroom, and also covered a variety of free astronomy/space resources suitable for KS3-KS5 science and GCSE Astronomy students.

It wasn't all talks and demos though - all Faulkes Telescope (FT) training workshops contain a significant practical element where teachers carry out the exercises that we recommend they use with their students.

The workshop was a great success, and feedback from the teachers was very positive, with one teaching commenting that it was a "training day that I will actually use in the future"!

The next day, Paul and Sarah ventured to Techniquest Glyndwr in Wrexham, where, as part of the build-up to the Wrexham Science festival, they ran four workshops for 100 year 9 pupils, based on 'Death, Destruction and Dinosaurs'.

Following an exciting (but slightly scary!) talk from Paul about the threat to Earth from rogue asteroids, the students were split into groups and participated in more hands-on activities - from blowing holes in the Earth using an interactive 'Impact Calculator' to handling real meteorites and dinosaur fossils (including dinosaur poo!).

A great day was had by all, and we're hoping to run more FT events like these up in North Wales in the future. All events will be advertised on the FT website, so keep your eyes peeled and watch this space!