Supporting Schools

Our scientists and engineers are always excited to talk about their work and every year we interact directly with thousands of primary and secondary school students and their teachers.

We have a passion for sharing our research and engineering in areas of astrophysics and solar system science and we also discuss the missions we are working on, careers in space science and space history.

Get in contact: requests for school talks and visits

We are always very happy to consider requests for school talks and visits. For inquiries please email mssl.outreach@ucl.ac.uk. We do consider every email enquiry and endeavour to accommodate as many requests as possible. However, our staff and students' availability means it is not possible to respond positively to every request. Please note that MSSL is a working laboratory so it is unfortunately very unusual for us to be able to accommodate visits by groups or individuals to our facilities.

Our Initiatives:

Orbyts

Through the Orbyts programme MSSL researchers are partnered with schools to provide pupils with relatable science role models while empowering them to conduct their own original space research projects.

Space Science Week

Every year we run a summer scheme (normally in July), known as Space Science Week, for 16 to 18 year olds interested in pursuing space science or engineering as a career.

International Reach:

We work in partnership with organisations such as the Royal Observatory, Greenwich where our PhD students and staff support the delivery of planetarium shows and give talks to members of the public, the London International Science Youth Forum, for which we have hosted visits and given talks, and the Ri through support on the Christmas Lectures. Our schools engagement has an additional international reach though taking part in initiatives such as Skype a Scientist and the Global Science Show, which is a virtual science festival held on Twitter.