Staffordshire Invertebrate Science Fair 2022 Review

I've mentioned before that the Staffs Invertebrate Science Fair is an unmissable event in our house.  But in March 2022, the bug people reunited in a post-COVID world - how would it all go?  Could it still be as good as it was in 2019 or early 2020?

And the answer is that it was even better.  Maybe it's the maturity of my children; maybe they understand more about what they're seeing (maybe they're more likely to look into petri dishes at the creatures inside, instead of trying to set them free) but March 2022 was a good time to be a bug enthusiast.

I have previously mentioned that the experts are key to the success of the event, and this year they returned with even more enthusiasm and even more facts.  Even the scientists who are perhaps less accustomed to working with the general public were talkative, chatty and happy to share their knowledge, while working double-time to make sure that they were making things easy to understand.  No, a six-year-old may not know the difference between a flea, a fly or a genuine bug, but the entomologist who was running the stand on insects was more than happy to help to explain in words that we could all understand.

The butterfly expert, John, was a real gent, drawing butterfly outlines from stencils and then sharing them out for young enthusiasts to colour in with their own designs.  He was tireless, enthusiastic, energetic and engaging, which is just what young bug fans want from their grown-ups. 

Similarly, the Staffs Wildlife stand was manned by an expert in centipedes and spiders, and had plastic child-friendly microscopes with creepy-crawly specimens lined up.  These critters look weird enough at actual size, but when viewed through any kind of magnification they look alien, and very scary (and very exciting for young and older viewers alike).  Great stuff!

One thing that really makes these events, though, is the freebies :-)  Apart from our own collection of photos, drawings and pictures, we were the grateful recipients of assorted stationery courtesy of the Harper Adams stand (rulers, pens, wristbands, and so on), and spider leaflets from the British Arachnologists Society's stand.  We may not exactly like spiders, but seeing close-up pictures of eight legs and multiple eyes was fascinating (from a safe distance) and we ended up fielding all sorts of questions from our youngest - what's this called, why is it called that, and so on. 

Being held in Staffs University's Science Building meant that there were local amenities on hand - toilets, a snack bar and plenty of space to sit down and take a break - which is a big winner too.  The fair was well-attended but not at all overcrowded (we're not quite over the pandemic yet) and is a very bright and airy location.  My big hope for 2022 events is that we'll get the Big Biology Day in the autumn - the other half of Staffs Uni's science events for the year... then we really will be back to normal.

We had a great time (in case you hadn't guessed) and we are very grateful to all the experts who gave their time, patience, energy, leaflets, quiz sheets and freebies and who once again made this a great day.