As this piece goes up on the Ordered Universe Project blog, our 2017–2018 cohort of OxNet pupils will be participating in their first OxNet North East seminar.
In the 2017–2018 academic year, the Ordered Universe Project is continuing its partnership with OxNet to work with sixth form students in the North East of England. This year’s course comprises a Skills Day at Ushaw College, a series of evening seminars held in Sunderland, a two-day Easter School at Durham University, and then a week-long Summer School at Oxford University.
We recently held the Skills Day in the tranquil surroundings of Ushaw College where our students were able to meet each other for the first time and learn more about the course. The aims of the Skills Day were to allow this year’s cohort of students to get to know one another, while also introducing them to the ideas and expectations of the course.
Now, for the next six weeks our students will give up their Monday evenings to take part in specialist seminars delivered by senior academics including Profs Tom McLeish (Chair in Natural Philosophy, University of York), Brian Tanner (Emeritus Professor of Physics, Durham University), and Colin Rennie and Cate Watkinson (both University of Sunderland and Sunderland National Glass Centre). The seminar topics will introduce our students to favourite Ordered Universe topics such as light, colour, and the cosmos, and will naturally include discussion of the scientific works of Robert Grosseteste and how we have been translating and interpreting his ideas during the project.
We’re excited to partner with OxNet and our cohort of students for this year’s course and we’re looking forward to illuminating discussions about the wonder and order of the medieval and modern universe.
Photo of Colin Rennie and Cate Watkinson courtesy of Rosie Reed Gold.