First children visit £13m new Science Oxford Centre

At Oxford's £13 million new science education centre, creativity and having fun are clearly just as important as hard facts.

Dozens of children got a first look inside the Science Oxford Centre yesterday at a sold-out launch event.

They got to see the Exploration Zone with 20 hands-on exhibits, workshop and lab spaces and a 120-seater theatre – all set in a 15-acre woodland complete with ponds and walkways at Stansfeld Park in Headington Quarry.

Targeted at children aged three-to-11, the centre claims to be 'the UK's first indoor-outdoor education centre'

Science Oxford education director Bridget Holligan said: "The ethos of the centre is to enable skills-based learning through ‘active prolonged engagement’ with the exhibits, workshops and shows that Science Oxford has developed and delivered.

"It is a place of investigation and discovery – an exciting space where children can create their own experiments and test their own inventions.”

Among the experiments to be conducted, youngsters can check their ‘glow’ with a thermal camera, build a giant marble maze, play Guess Who with fossils and go crazy with a 'scarf shooter'.

During the week the centre will be open to primary schools and nurseries in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

It will also be open to the public every other Saturday from the start of September as well as hosting regular science clubs, workshops and forest schools. The theatre will used for shows, talks and performances throughout the year.