Sparking inspiration with our Shetland Space Camp

In March 2025, the Academy team travelled up to the Shetland Islands to deliver a Space to Learn Space Camp for a group of 11 to 12 year olds from two local schools. Regional Project Officer for Scotland and Northern Ireland, Charlotte Jones, led this exciting adventure so we've asked her to reflect on the week and share about what exactly we got up to...

Each day was themed, with talks, workshops and demonstrations focusing on topics that would allow students to gain information and ideas to feed into their group project work. The group project work allows students to develop skills such as communication, project management and teamwork. Throughout the week we were also joined by Jenna, Jess and Alana from Jon Egging Trust (JET) who were there to deliver sessions to the students that focused on their strengths, teamwork, problem solving and challenges. The students really enjoyed this aspect of the camp with many of them gaining confidence as the week went on.

On Monday we kicked off the camp with our Astronomy day. This day was packed with experiments and talks that included everything from telescopes to exoplanets. The students had a chance to work in small groups to build a telescope, before moving onto learning about exoplanets and being introduced to their project work for the week ahead. Alongside this they got creative in designing their own mission patches and allocating job roles within their project group. This set us up nicely for the evening where we had Matt from Tayside Planetarium join us with a portable planetarium. Here the students learnt about the constellations, and they also enjoyed a fun craft session where they could design and create their own constellation!

On the second day the students had a talk from Josh Barker (from Space Park Leicester) regarding rocket science and the history of rockets with some fun demos along the way, before they went onto building their own rockets ready to launch near SaxaVord Spaceport later in the week. Following this we had our lead physics practitioner Natalie introducing the concepts of 'Life in Space' which involved hunting for tardigrades - this was a huge success with both students and teachers! Following this, the students worked on their projects where they discussed the principles of their base design and their key roles in the project.

Day 3 saw the students learning about human survival in space, the morning was packed full of astronaut training activities where the students had the opportunity to complete tasks and ask questions to complete their astronaut training passport. The activities included exploring the ISS using VR, testing their reaction times, balance and co-ordination and suiting up for space as they tried on a real flight suit and helmet. Following their astronaut training the students designed and filmed a recruitment video to encourage others to join them on their space mission. The students were later introduced to Bryden Priest who is the community projects officer at SaxaVord Spaceport. He gave a brilliant talk about the spaceport, why the launch pads are being built in Shetland and how beneficial it will be in the years to come.