For Primary Engineering week, Year 3 had a special visit from Newcastle and Northumbria Universities. Children looked at everything from mobile phones, artificial intelligence, food colourings in Smarties, to the transportation of organs.
Children had the opportunity to look at a variety of colourings used to colour Smarties and found out some very interesting facts on how science can help solve problems in finding colours in nature.
Did you know? Red Smarties were previously dyed with cochineal, a derivative of the product made by extracting colour from female cochineal insects. A pigment extracted from red cabbage is now used in the United Kingdom!
In February 2008, blue smarties were reintroduced using natural blue dye derived from the cyanobacterium spirulina instead of the controversial brilliant blue that had been dropped nearly two years earlier as part of a drive by makers Nestle to rid the sweets of artificial colours.
