Bradford leading the world in science education.

Everyone is worrying about UK manufacturing. The University of Bradford is doing something about it. Children are put off science in Britain’s schools with only about 20 per cent of them doing Science A-levels.

To combat the decline in the teaching of sciences in schools, we have devised an online astronomy programme for schools that uses the world’s first robotic telescope, built at Bradford, that is now based in the Canary Islands on one of the best astronomy sites in the world.

The science learning is on the web and with games, models and competitions children are pushed into being scientists.

Children start school excited by science and by the time they finish primary school 70 per cent are put off science mainly because primary teachers who have done very little science themselves find it difficult to answer the children’s questions and are completely unable to enthuse about science. But does it matter?

It does matter. It was manufacturing that made Britain great and modern manufacturing needs, scientists engineers, technologists and mathematicians.

Manufacturing is still at the base of wealth creation and that covers cars, ships and planes as well as software, chemicals or food for supermarkets.

It is providing goods that people want that generates the wealth and wages for people to go to the pictures, football matches, concerts and on holiday. We have had our fingers burned by the easy money of the casino banks with their amazing bonuses, and after bailing out the banking system with £1.2 trillion pounds, we are now in a recession wishing we had the manufacturing we once had.

Manufacturing needs innovative scientists at all levels, bringing in new ideas and new technologies and it is practical science that delivers an innovative and creative workforce.

The University of Bradford has developed the only practical science programmes on the web that get over the problem of the teachers not knowing about practical science by educating the teachers at the same time.

This University of Bradford Robotic telescope programme is a unique world phenomenon which we take out to schools.

Why does the moon change its shape? We give pupils access to the telescope and they can order pictures of the moon changing shape. The robot sends the pictures back to the children with useful tools to process the images.

The children find it inspiring to send commands to the real robot in Tenerife. The supporting website pushes the children into being scientists, getting them to think about their questions and what sort of evidence is required to see why the moon changes its shape.

The children can use it from the library and from home as well as from the classroom. The children then go back to their lessons and push the teachers into doing more projects and the teachers are motivated to learn the science themselves. The children’s enthusiasm drives the teachers learning.

Since making the telescope available on the internet in 1993, we have had hundreds of thousands of people using it from all over the UK and further afield.

Professor Lord Winston from Imperial College London uses it for Imperial College school work in London and the South East, Glasgow University uses it in Scotland University College Dublin in Ireland.

We have had invitations from Hong Kong, Egypt, Turkey and China to set up programmes for their schools.

Money is not easy. Schools are short of cash. It costs us nearly £400,000 a year. The university pays about two-thirds and we get money from funding organisations. The rest comes from what we earn from schools.

We charge schools a subscription rate of £70 (£195) a year for teachers and kids in primary (secondary) school and for that they can use the telescope as many times as they like throughout the year. Individual users can get the robot telescope space missions for £8 per year and if schools want us to work in school we charge £160 per half day.

There is good reason to celebrate science in Bradford. We are world leaders in getting children into science and our aim is to make Bradford a centre for manufacturing investment.

For more information, visit schools.telescope.org and my.telescope.org.