Dornoch teacher's magic tricks wow festival
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A CHEMISTRY teacher from Dornoch Academy has wowed delegates at an overseas festival by demonstrating how magic illusions can be used to teach science.
Dr Adrian Allan performed his magic tricks at the Science on Stage (SoS) Europe Festival in Cascais, Portugal. The festival brings together science educators from across the continent to exchange teaching ideas and concepts.
More than 400 teachers from around 30 countries attended this year's event which comprises a fair, workshops and short lectures.
Dr Allan was among 13 primary and secondary teachers from the UK plus an additional support team.
He delivered a workshop at the conference and was selected to be part of the 'highlights package' shared on the main stage at the end of each day.
Dr Allan said that teaching pupils to do science magic performances developed their communication skills and confidence.
It is not his first time on the international stage, having previously represented the UK in 2017 in Hungary.
At that event he presented a project about how Dornoch Academy developed a partnership with distillers Whyte & Mackay to teach and promote chemistry to students.
Dr Allan will be part of a team that will share teaching ideas from the festival with UK teachers at a Best of Science on Stage session at the 2020 ASE Conference in Reading next year.
UK Science on Stage representative Stuart Farmer said: "The whole festival was really well organised – it was a great venue and it was by far the best team spirit we’ve had as a UK delegation at the festival.”
