In Autumn 2022 we welcomed families from The Conservation Volunteers’ ‘Building Roots’ project: Building Roots Community for ocean discovery sessions at Dynamic Earth.  As well as a complimentary gallery tour and planetarium show, we provided hands-on activities for families to explore ocean environments and learn about Scotland’s marine ecosystems, expanding on the themes from Dynamic Earth’s new Discover the Deep gallery.

The families were excited to learn about the deep sea through handling samples such as shark teeth and coral skeletons, and investigating microplastics under microscopes. With craft activities, soft-toys and refreshments as well, children and adults of all ages greatly enjoyed their time with us – some even said it had been their best day since arriving in Edinburgh!

“The monetary contributions by Dynamic Earth helped further to make the sessions accessible to people who otherwise would not have been able to visit it.” – Group leader

We worked with different groups across one year, to shape and design Planetarium content based on each group’s interests, with each group putting their own stamp on what they wanted their time with the planetarium to look like. This resulted in unique music compositions, artwork and narrated videos that became part of our regular public planetarium shows.

This gave each participant a sense of ownership over the project and a say in the content shown to planetarium visitors. Specifically, the Tinderbox Sparks youth orchestra composed a piece of music called ‘Sunscapes’ and The Braidwood Art Group designed their own constellation artwork, shown as part of our seasonal What’s Up planetarium show. This has now been seen by over 2000 people! Students from Upward Mobility created a mini film ‘Captain Starman Discovers the Solar System’ to teach others about space and was premiered to students and their families at a special film night in the planetarium. This project has had an incredible legacy and was one of our most successfully co-developed community projects to date.

Check out the creation of ‘Sunscapes’ here, with thanks to Tinderbox Sparks Orchestra!

‘This project has been so amazing for her- she’s just loved it so much and been talking about it and practicing the music loads. Really amazing experience for her to get to come here’ – parent

‘They are absolutely delighted. This has been such a positive experience for them both, they really are enjoying it so much. Please let us know if there is any other way to keep them involved when the project has finished. Neither of them play in any other groups and they are really missing out!’ – parent

In partnership with LGBT Health & Wellbeing we hosted a family takeover day at Dynamic Earth, providing a welcoming environment for parents and children to socialise with other families whilst engaging with earth science. As well as taking part in fun workshops including a dinosaur storytelling session and a Deep Sea Adventure, families enjoyed exploring our galleries and catching a show in our Planetarium too.

“The event was quite amazing! The volunteers were very friendly. Amazing environment to enjoy the weekend” – Parent

“What a warm and special welcome you provided!  Thank you SO much for all the thought and consideration that went into our event together.  It was honestly a great example of doing inclusion work well, engaging with us in a really meaningful way.” – Group leader