Snowflakes, Ice and Midnight Drags;

February 11th saw one of  the heaviest snowfalls of the year, roads were closed, and the shuttle arrivals from Manchester Airport were unable to climb the hill, so our visitors had to drag their baggage up he hill to the hostel.

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Day 1 Was an ice breaker day.....literally.... ice had to broken up in order to reach the classroom. The activities on the first day were all focused around the European space station.   The Dutch, Croatian, Norwegian team of Kim, Timm, Elisa demonstrated themselves to be Cassini model makers Extraordinaire

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Day 2 ; Today we visited Speedwell and Peak Caverns. 

the caverns are made from horizontal lead miners' flooded level passageway driven horizontally into the hillside. It leads to the cavern itself, a limestone cave. We descended a long staircase and  made the journey into the cave by boat. 

At the end of the passage, we saw a cave, fluorospar veins, stalagtites and stalagmites and the "Bottomless Pit". This pit is an extremely deep vertical shaft, now choked to within 20 metres of the surface by rock spoil dumped by miners.

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On returning to Hartington we went to the village hall where we had arranged for a visit from planet earth Education Centre  where our students had a really amazing Planetarium session to learn about the planets and constellations.

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Day 3 This was a visit to Jodrell Bank......brrr it was cold wet and windy and while Jodrell bank may be a wonderful awe inspring technological wonder, it was too cold, On returning to the hostel, students researched an astronomical topic and prepared a presentation. The presentations ranged from the solar system, to wormholes to a description of quasars and pulsars.

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Day 4 Today we visited Tatton Park in the morning followed by a guided walking tour of Chester. 

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The evening finished with a caelidh in the village hall 

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Final day included a visit to the Manchester Museum of industry and science.

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It was a great week.  Friendships made, lessons learned and Bridges built.  A full VLOG of the week will be added below