Excitement was buzzing as we boarded the coach. Our destination? Magna Science Centre in Rotherham. House in several large warehouses that used to contain steel furnaces that produced (and made famous) Sheffield Steel, Magna offers a hands on experience with the elements, getting the children closer to the raw materials that were used during the process of smelting steel.

In the Fire Pavilion, the children could see how electricity was used to heat the raw materials up to make steel, even having the opportunity to create their own heat using the machines around the pavilion. The main draw if the Fire pavilion was the Fire Tornado, which was a welcome sight on a chilly day.

Venturing below, the Earth Pavilion explored how the raw materials for making steel were extracted from the earth. The children could move rocks using a series of pullies and conveyor belts across the whole pavilion, before detonating some TNT to blow a new whole in a quarry. By far the biggest (and the most fun) highlight of Earth were the JCB diggers that the children could use to scoop up rocks (plastic balls) from the quarry.

Following the flow, the children made a splash in the Water Pavilion where they learnt all about the huge amounts of water that were needed to cool the steel once it had been melted. The Water Pavilion also looked at how water was used to power areas of the steel works and how it was used to transport both the raw materials and finished steel across the country and beyond.

Overall, we had an amazing day learning all about how steel was made using the different elements as well as seeing one of the remaining furnaces which showed how the molten steel travelled when in the steel works.