How? Festival in Shanganagh Park

This is a small, annual, one day festival held in Shanganagh Park in Shankill Co Dublin. It seeks to explore the question ‘How?’ with kids. While still in its early days we had an enjoyable afternoon there a couple of years ago. Perhaps the two highlights for us were ‘The Big Dig’ by The School of Irish Archaeology and the mobile planetarium – ‘The Exploration Dome’. For both of these parts of the festival you needed to sign up – you could do so on the day – for a time slot and then you could take part.

In the Big Dig the children take part in a pretend archaeological dig on a site – they get given tools and they have to dig and search carefully for ‘ancient’ artefacts. The volunteers are on hand to help the children and also talk to them about what they find – from coins to cooking pots.

In The Exploration Dome you go into a black dome and you sit looking up at the ceiling and watch a fabulous show all about astronomy, the planets and the stars.

Also at the festival were a few tents with various groups showing their scientific work and, in one tent, there were science shows going on that showed the kids some cool experiments – some of the experiments involved willing and able volunteers to get involved!

Hopefully the festival will continue to grow in size and strength and become a worthwhile date in the diary in future!