Geek Walks and Dead Sleazy among the Glasgow Science Festival 2013 highlights

• Charlotte Runcie
• 16 May 2013

Other top events include a Festival of Frogs and the science of whisky

As it enters its sixth year, the biggest draw of the Glasgow Science Festival continues to be a huge range of family events. Whether you’re a hardcore chemistry aficionado or just curious about big bangs and bright flashes, this year’s offerings should go a long way to proving science for the masses doesn’t begin and end in school.

Lots of the 2013 activity ties in with the Year of Natural Scotland. Glasgow, Naturally (Kelvingrove Museum, Sat 15 & Sun 16 Jun) is a weekend of goings-on inspired by nature that could see you building a spectroscope for looking at rainbows, sharing your own natural history photography in the Parklife exhibition or dusting off your apron and cracking some eggs to compete in a Big Science Bake-Off (fear not, even your chocolate cake’s soggy bottom can be solved by science).

More opportunities for hands-on adventures come at the University of Glasgow’s Science Sunday (University of Glasgow, Sun 9 Jun), with live demonstrations, workshops and birds of prey displays providing bitesize family introductions to cutting edge scientific research. Venture outside, and a Geek Walk (City Chambers, Sat 15 Jun) guides you through Glasgow’s engineering history, while the Festival of Frogs (Festival Park, Pacific Drive, Sat 15 Jun) gives pond-dippers young and old a taste of conservation.

And if you’ve made it to adulthood without being able to tell your arsenic from your albumen, there are plenty of events for grown-ups that don’t require much technical knowledge. Dead Sleazy (Nice’n’Sleazy, Thu 6 Jun) combines a screening of cult classic The Evil Dead with a poker-faced discussion on scientifically proven methods for surviving a zombie apocalypse, while the Tasty Science events provide an excuse to treat your taste buds as well as your brain cells. Sample a selection of whiskies and coffees with the University of Glasgow Polyomics Group and get the lowdown on the molecular make-up of all the finest beans and malts. Your old biology teacher would be so proud.

Various venues, Glasgow, Thu 6–Sun 16 Jun.