Share your vision of a better future with our science haiku (sci-ku) competition
The 2025 Edinburgh Science Festival will feature Spaceship Earth, a new major exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland. Spaceship Earth will explore the challenge of living on a planet with finite resources, the innovative solutions to help us use these resources and will encourage us to imagine our future world.
As part of this, we’re running a sci-ku competition, inviting you to imagine a thriving, sustainable Earth 100 years from now. The winning entries will be displayed as part of the exhibition, which runs Saturday 5 – Sunday 20 April 2025.
What is a Sci-ku?
Inspired by the Japanese form of poetry haiku, a sci-ku is a three line poem about science that follows a 5–7–5 syllable pattern. An example would be:
Lush, green horizons
Living simply but thriving
A challenge to greed
– Emily Raemaekers
Write Your Own Sci-ku
Looking after our world and living sustainably is really important. We need to buy fewer things, waste less and use less energy to help protect the environment. Think about what changest might need to happy to make sure planet Earth is thriving in 100 years’ time. How might people and animals live? What might landscapes and seas look like? What sorts of technology and inventions might be built to help us live sustainably?
The winning entries will be chosen from three categories: primary school, secondary school and an open category for all ages.
Share Your Vision
The competition closes on Monday 30 September 2024 and winners will be contacted via email.
Follow the link below to submit your sci-ku.
Get Creative
Download a sci-ku guide for more information and some activities that might inspire your writing. We have designed guides that can form lesson plans for primary and secondary schools, or that can be done at home. We've also created a poster you can print out and share the competition in your local library, community group or after school club!
