Fantastic facilities

The brand-new Centre in Durham has fantastic facilities – from the café area where you can sit and muse seated below ‘Imagining Aurora’, to the science lab and training rooms. Every room has an interactive white board and is wireless enabled – you can video-conference too.
You can have a look around 24/7 via our virtual tour

Click here to take a virtual tour of the centre

Map to the centre (Acrobat PDF)
Map to the centre (jpeg)

Professional development programme

Whether you work in the smallest first school or the largest FE College, we have an extensive professional development programme for teachers, technicians and teaching assistants from primary through to post-16. Courses run at venues from Alnwick to Middlesbrough and can be brought directly into your school through our bespoke professional development service!



Supporting science

Our free Kit Club loans out equipment and resources – each kit comes with a complete set of teacher’s notes and, where appropriate, sufficient equipment for all of the class.

Booking & Further Info

Artist in Residence

Alec has now completed his two year residency at Science Learning Centre North East. Thought-Cloud jotter was published in 2006. A free web-book, The Book of Thought-Clouds, is also available. Mesostic Laboratorium, an anthology of mesostic poems composed on the names of scientists, was published in 2007, accompanied by a free web-book, and an animation. Tom Shakespeare and Ira Lightman collaborated with Alec and pupils from six regional schools.

Mesostic Web Book

A series of features for the pathway between the Centre and Framwellgate School can now be viewed on-line. These include Thought-Cloud Seats around an oak platform (made with Dan Civico); a small orchard of apple trees grafted from the original Sir Isaac Newton apple tree, and an avenue of native tree species. The planting scheme was made in collaboration with poet-gardener Gerry Loose. Poems selected from Mesostic Laboratorium appear on posts along the avenue (lettered by Laurie Clark) and as signs inside the centre.

Two other science and technology related projects, Floating Island Garden, and w/m (windmill turbines) also feature on Alec’s website, www.alecfinlay.com