The Cheltenham Science Festival celebrated its 15th birthday in style with thousands of visitors enjoying free interactive activities.

Organisers issued 41,300 tickets for what has been described as the most engaging and hands-on Science Festival yet.

The interactive MakerShack attracted around 9,200 visitors of all ages to create, invent, play and explore, while a further 13,500 explored the free Discover Zone at Cheltenham Town Hall.

More than 6,500 pupils and teachers from 95 schools attended the schools programme of shows, workshops, day packages and over 88 free interactive zone sessions.

Speakers included comedians Dara Ó Briain and Jon Culshaw, musician Evelyn Glennie and former Chief Science of NASA Ellen Stofan.

Tshiamo Legoale, a 27-year old geologist from South Africa, was crowned the 2017 FameLab International champion and Audience Vote Winner at the festival.

She described how plants can absorb specific metals from the environment into their tissues and how this process can be used to literally 'harvest' gold from wheat.

After beating 31 rivals, Tshiamo said: "I was very humbled by the opportunity to come here for the very first time in my life to meet wonderful people and extremely good scientists.

"I got to hear what everybody else in the world is doing. FameLab has been an amazing journey from the beginning to the end."

Picture credit: pixabay