Redpath Museum and Physics Outreach bring science to life at McGill's Bellairs Research Institute
This past September, St. James Parish in Barbados celebrated We Gatherin’, a year-long festival of Barbadian heritage, culture and community. As part of the festivities, McGill’s Bellairs Research Institute hosted a day-long Science Adventure for local schoolchildren featuring a visit from McGill’s Redpath Museum and the Physics Outreach Committee.
Physics Master’s student Valentina Mazzotti and Physics PhD candidate Catherine Boisvert represented Physics Outreach, with Educational Program Manager Annick Brabant and Educational Consultant Megan Phillips representing the Redpath Museum.
120 students from St. James Parish schools aged 10 to 14 participated in the event, which marked the first time that both the Redpath Museum’s Education Team and Physics Outreach had ever organized a workshop abroad.
“The Redpath Museum is dedicated to sparking curiosity and making knowledge accessible,” said Phillips and Brabant. “Partnering with Bellairs for this Science Adventure allowed us to share that mission beyond campus and inspire young learners in Barbados. We really enjoyed meeting the students and learning from them, too.”
Founded in 1954, Bellairs is Canada’s only university-affiliated teaching and research station in the tropics. Throughout the year, it hosts students and researchers from around the world for field courses, field studies, workshops and research retreats.
The We Gatherin’ event was the second of two science education events held at Bellairs in the past year. Last December, in celebration of Bellairs’ 70th anniversary, McGill collaborated with Ohio-based Center of Science and Industry (COSI) and the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown to bring science out of the classroom for over three hundred schoolchildren for a day of hands-on scientific activities.
At September’s event, Bellairs was abuzz with excitement as schoolchildren arrived for a day of scientific exploration and discovery.
The Redpath team led activities drawing connections between two very different animals: polar bears and sea turtles.
While they’re found in opposite corners of the globe, both animals are heavily impacted by the effects of climate change. Using interactive games, replicas and specimens from the Museum’s collections, worksheets and discussions, the students explored how climate change affects the animals’ habitats, emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental issues from the tropics to the Arctic.
Meanwhile, Physics Outreach organized hands-on science experiments designed to spark curiosity and critical thinking about physical phenomena like gravity, air resistance, buoyancy and electrochemistry.
In the morning, younger students participated in activities like the Parachute Challenge, which required them to design parachutes to safely land marbles on the ground. In the afternoon, older students took part in more advanced activities that involved building a compass and constructing a basic electric motor. Worksheets helped guide the students through the activities, but it was up to them to find the solutions and arrive at conclusions themselves.
“Seeing the students' excitement and curiosity as they engaged with the demos and the experiments was incredibly rewarding, as it reminded me of the joy of discovery that science can bring, especially when it’s hands-on and interactive,” said Mazzotti. “What felt truly special was watching the students experiment, ask questions and light up with understanding. It was meaningful to help them discover science not as something abstract, but as something they could actively explore and make their own.”
By the end of the day, the students had explored new ideas, made unexpected connections and tested their own theories hands-on, connecting each of them to Bellairs’ long history of scientific discovery and exploration.