Discover the Science of Feelings

The festival explores the world of social science, from how society has shaped our local areas to behaviours that help fight climate change. This year a number of our events will focus on "Our working Lives" to see what our working lives might look like in the future and how the changes that technology brings have changed the world of work rapidly over the past 100 years.

ESRC Festival of Social Science in NI 2025

What’s That Feeling? How Children Understand and Talk About Emotions

Led by Dr Agnieszka Graham and Professor Teresa McCormack (Queen's University Belfast), and Dr Sara Lorimer (Ulster University)Join us for a fun, family-friendly drop-in event at W5 showcasing developmental and social science research from Queen’s and Ulster Universities. Designed especially for children aged 5-12 and their grown-ups, this interactive session combines playful, hands-on activities for kids with engaging, bite-sized insights for parents and carers, all focused on how we understand and talk about feelings.Children can take part in a vocabulary treasure hunt, design their own emojis to add to a colourful art display, race against the clock in an emotion word challenge, or step onto our giant feelings timeline to see how emotions change over time.Children will also have the exciting opportunity to take part in real research experiments, helping researchers learn more about how young people understand and talk about emotions.Families can also enjoy games like emotion word charades, with prizes and stickers to collect along the way.Meanwhile, parents can browse Science in Action info panels for practical tips on talking about feelings at home and discover the research shaping our understanding of children’s emotional development.Come along to play, learn, and see how science can help us understand ourselves and each other better.Click <a href="https://esrcfestivalni-2025.eventbrite.com/" title="https://esrcfestivalni-2025.eventbrite.com/">here</a> to go back to the full list of NI eventsThis event is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2025 and was made possible thanks to funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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