Dr Sarah Bearchell 🌻

A Zoom screenshot. The host of the call, Rod Hebden appears in a tiny window at the top, surrounded by a Festival of Tomorrow backdrop. Most of the screen is occupied by Dr Sarah Bearchell, a white woman with long straight brown-grey hair and round glasses wearing an emerald green jumper. She is accompanied by Oso, an orange muppet-type puppet with bushy eyebrows.

I've been running an online challenge for @festivaloftomorrow.bsky.social - with the help of my pal, Oso.

In Imaginary Aliens, primary school children were challenged to invent an alien which combined adaptations to climate with their amazing imaginations. Amazing science and creativity!

The Cloud Factory is coming to @festivaloftomorrow.bsky.social STEAM, #Swindon Saturday 14 February!

Free shows at 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 2.30pm

Everyone in the audience gets to see, hear, touch, taste and smell clouds - make sure you're seated early!

#Family #Science #SEND #FREE

Two photos. The first shows an immature Elm, Ulmus procera, devoid of leaves on a February day. It is thin with an upright habit. The second shows a close up of a young lateral branch with regular, spherical pink buds. They look as if they'd have the texture of those liquorice sweets that are covered in hundreds and thousands.

. #NoticingNature A disease resistant elm thriving at Christchurch #Oxford. Their flower buds are just about to burst open!

Most of Europe's elms were devastated in the last century by Dutch elm disease, caused by the fungus Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, spread by bark mining beetles.
#Nature #SciComm

The forecourt of an abandoned office block has become clogged with dead leaves and litter. In the cracks where the pavement meets the facade is a row of self-seeded butterfly bushes, Buddleja davidii. In February they are straggly and green, with the remnant of last year's flower heads.

. #NoticingNature Very appropriate for Bluesky!

Buddleja will take hold in the cracks of any abandoned city space. It looks gorgeous in summer and is an excellent nectar source for butterflies but can crowd-out caterpillar food plants. #SciComm #Nature

A wall of grey engineering bricks meets a tarmac path. Growing at the interface is a ragged looking plant with clusters of tiny flowers, only noticeable when pointed out to you.

. #NoticingNature One of those plants which can live in the tiniest pocket of soil! Pellitory-of-the-wall, Parietaria Judaica, looking glorious in #0xford
#Nature #SciComm #PavementPlants

A photo taken through a window looking outwards. There's a blurry grey sky and treetops but in the centre of the frame, in sharp focus, is the silhouette of a ladybird walking across the window.

. #NoticingNature

A *slightly* warmer day sees his ladybird out for a walk

#Nature #SciComm

. #NoticingNature LOOK VERY CLOSELY! Pull aside some dead leaves and you might find some springtails! These little jumpers were only about 2mm long. There are over 9000 species of Collembola, which are not insects but hexapods.
#Nature #SciComm

. #NoticingNature An earthworm running (?!) for the cover of darkness after I accidentally removed its safe covering of dead leaves.
#Nature #SciComm

A close-up of small rosettes of long rounded leaves with coarse hairs on the upperside. One leaf has been removed to show the white felted underside.

. #NoticingNature A patch of the neatest rosettes with the scruffiest hairs (until you look at the underside of the leaves!)

#Nature #SciComm

A distant and close up shot of petty Spurge, Euphorbia peplus. You can see it's a short, lightly branches annual with rounded leaves. Up close there is a strange circular structure with eight horns around the outside. These are the glands.

. #NoticingNature Petty Spurge looking gloriously healthy by this sunny wall! Have a close look at the remains of an old flower to see the horned glands (spiky bits on the paler rounded structure) typical of this species

#Nature #SciComm #Oxford

Recently, I've been posting about #NoticingNature, which is something I asked students to do today as part of my Imaginary Aliens workshop for @festivaloftomorrow.bsky.social

To get them thinking, I use real animals and Oso, a creature I found living in my shed.

#SciComm

A rainy street scene in historic Oxford. There's Oriel College facing onto Oriel Square, a tarmacked street with a wide cobblestone boundary. This area is covered in electric scooters but there is also a permanent bike rack and the ground in this area is covered in grass and moss growing between the cobbles.

. #NoticingNature Oriel Square, #Oxford. Not a lot of nature...but look closely under the bike rack! Low foot traffic and kept damp through a permanent rota of locked-up bikes. This helps plants and mosses grow larger between the cobbles. Zoom in to see the flush of green!
#Nature #SciComm

Debris at the side of the path includes leaf litter, young dandelion plants and over 20 sprouting sycamore seeds. You can see the remnants of the winged seed pods of some, but for most you can just see a root and the cotyledon leaves

. #NoticingNature Sycamore seeds a-sprouting!

#Nature #Spring #SciComm #Oxford

The branch of a beech tree is silhouetted against a grey January sky. Last autumn's seed pods remain. They are covered in hooks and have a mouth-like opening so each looks like a hairy pac man! The long slender buds are growing for spring.

. #NoticingNature Beech tree seed pods silhouetted against the January sky, each like a like hairy pac man. Look closely and you'll see this spring's buds developing, tightly packed for now!

#Nature #SciComm

A shady wintry bank with a weak sun just dipping behind it. There are snowdrops bravely emerging from a covering of dead leaves

. #NoticingNature Next time you see a snowdrop, take a closer look. Those six petals aren't actually petals 🤔 There are two whorls (circular patterns) of TEPALS, a structure which is neither leaf or petal. Look closely and you'll see the inner set has green markings.

#Nature #SciComm #Spring

Clusters of tiny white flowers on the raised stems of a plant with lance-shaped leaves. You can also see heart-shaped seed pods.

I've been #NoticingNature

Clusters of tiny white flowers and heart-shaped seed pods tell me this is Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris.

Apparently, the pods produce mucus which traps nematodes. So it's a #protocarnivore (on the evolutionary path to #carnivore!)

#Nature #SciComm

Thanks, Claire, its such a thrill!

Three photos: 1. A non-fiction shelf in a community library, red arrow points to one book. 2. The cover of The Future of Agriculture by Sarah Bearchell. 3. The book plate marking it as the property of Oxfordshire County Council

I made a library book! It's a childhood dream come true!

Lovely to find my book in #Kennington #Oxford #Library today.

Today, I found out that the French term for "science communicator" is "vulgarisateur scientifique". Science vulgariser.

There is literally no better descriptor for someone who talks about animal sex and poo.

Joanna Bagniewska: Science vulgariser. Wulgaryzatorka nauki.

#scicomm 🧪

A small mound of mud in short wet grass. The mud has a lumpy, coiled look, as if it has been squeezed out of a toothpaste tube!

#NoticingNature A worm cast! Earthworms eat dead plant material, and a lot of soil, so it's no surprise that some of their poos look like coiled piles of mud.

Earthworms provide vital nutrient cycling and help aerate soils - so worm casts are something to celebrate! 🎉

#Nature #SciComm #Oxford

A close up of a leaf-less winter hazel twig. There are rigid, closed male catkins - the large catkins which you can feel with your hands. There is and a bright flash of red-pink on a bud. These are the stigmas of the female catkins, just starting to appear - often missed by the sighted because they are so inconspicuous.

#NoticingNature Spring IS coming!

Currently tightly closed and rigid, but soon these male hazel catkins will be flexing their pollen into the air.

Can you see a tiny flash of pink-red on a bud? These are the stigmas of the female catkin, just starting to emerge.

#Oxford #Nature #Spring #hazel

A neatly painted exterior wall. White with a black border. There is a crevice where the wall meets the damp paving slabs. In this gap grow three grass plants, the central one is flowering, its inflorescence contrasts bright green against the black.

#NoticingNature Hope!

There may be few pollinators here in #January but that doesn't matter to wind-pollinated grasses like this Poa annua. A tiny bunch of flowers on a grey day. #Spring is coming!

#Oxford #Nature #SciComm

An old limestone wall with a smear of green at the base. The photo was taken on a wet January day and a bare deciduous tree stands to the right.

#NoticingNature A damp day in the city. What could this smear of green be?

Life!

Raindrop splash moves nutrients and moisture up the wall creating a zone where algae and mosses can thrive.

#NoticingNature #Nature #SciComm #Oxford

Bright green patch of moss growing on the leaky joint of an urban downpipe

This feels like a cheeky rebellion! Moss growing from a leaky downpipe in #Oxford

#NoticingNature #Nature #SciComm

This is a lovely resource to develop #ComputationalThinking skills and a #GrowthMindset - all while playing a game #Rodocodo

I can personally vouch for the fun I had learning #VisualCoding by trial and error, all those 60 reward stars in the screenshots were earned while I was writing about it!

Absolutely what @gayroller.bsky.social says. I had to dash to my folks last week because of tech calamity. Life without TV would be hard for them. Systems are totally baffling if you've never had a job where you were trained to use a computer.

Thank you - one for my wishlist!

I'm bringing #TheCloudFactory to #ChelmsfordScienceFestival on Saturday and Sunday. Four free shows of hands-on multisensory science, suitable for all. Come along AND TOUCH A CLOUD!

Space Live: the new TV channel streaming absolutely spellbinding footage of Earth … forever ITVX’s perpetual real-time broadcast from the International Space Station is awe-inspiring … until it gets boring. But even though it’s hard to watch for long, it’s a humbling reminder of who we are

Stumbled upon Space Live on ITV – a 24/7 live feed from the ISS – and it is gloriously awesome/boring. Got a bit giddy when we passed over a thunder storm. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Sarah Bearchell - Five Way Interview Sarah Bearchell is a science writer and educator who has created educational activities for charities, learned societies and science centres...

Here's my interview with #ScienceWriter @brianclegg.bsky.social about writing The Future of Agriculture earlier this year. Thanks, Brian!

#SciComm #Agriculture #UK
popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2025/10/sara...