Sustainability in the melting pot

This month, a trip to Rotherham for a conference. The venue: the Magna Science Adventure Centre, housed in one of Britain's industrial powerhouses which made engineering steels until it closed in 1993. Big enough to hide two cathedrals, the building is now dark, dramatically enhancing the visual impact of four illuminated capsules perched among its old gantries and gangways where children can experience air, fire, earth and water in the modern hyperactive fashion. The sights and sounds of the steel melting process are periodically reproduced around an old furnace still in place. A group of schoolchildren wanders around, seeing little and being taught less.