Wednesday 25 April 2012

Are you planting a Turing Sunflower yet?

It's been an exciting week at Festival HQ. The new Turing's Sunflowers website launched, people have pledged to grow over 2000 sunflowers, we've had 18,000 seeds delivered, and of course we've been beavering away making plans for the Festival programme in October.

I took some time out from the week to plant some more seeds and look after my sunflower seedlings. It's been a little cold, but with a bit of warmth and a few rays of sun they've starter to sprout! 




So now is the time for you to get planting and join our big experiment... 

Head over to the Turing's Sunflowers website which will tell you loads about the project, how to plant your sunflower seeds, tips for the best flowers and more. There's also more information about what we're doing and why. More will be added to the site over the next month or so and we'll be getting to grips with the maths! You can share your stories with us online too. There will also be planting events and counting events taking place which will be listed on the Turing's Sunflowers and MSF websites

Turing's Sunflowers is inspired by maths and nature, and the links between the two that Alan Turing was exploring before he died. There's been such a fantastic response to the project from across the globe - from families wanting to contribute to some real science research to people really connecting with local hero Alan Turing. It's a brilliant project, but it takes people like you and our partners to really get behind something, make it exciting and make it happen. So thank you for such an enthusiastic response and your support. Please do spread the word... we need you to grow over 3000 sunflowers to help us collect the data we need! That's a lot, but we can do it. So get your seeds at the ready and get planting!

Happy planting!

Natalie, Manchester Science Festival Director