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leads the pack for science at festivals this summer. Following its debut at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire last year, this fusion of music, science and culture tackles the big themes, from the depths of the oceans to how to leave Earth. And you can hunt for new pulsars with the BBC’s Sky at Night team, get your hands on some graphene in the Star Field, and explore earthquakes in the Planet Field.

Modesty aside, New Ů��С��Ƶ is at the festival in strength, so watch out for: , with Catherine Brahic on the unknown talents of the cave artists at Chauvet and Lascaux; Frank Swain becoming as he explores how tech is changing our bio natures; Penny Sarchet wondering – complete with dancing parrots, bopping seals and cat music; and Sally Adee explaining .

Up in the thrillingly beautiful Brecon Beacons in south Wales, is cranking out a wide-ranging space theme, as Explorer Dome turns the Omni Tent into a mobile planetarium. Or if you just want to dance or trance out, rock down to the algorave, where electronic music and visuals are generated live by algorithms.

Tents, talks and tests

That daddy of all festivals, , has its Green Fields host a science tent that offers festivalgoers the chance to experience a supernova explosion, explore aeronautics and astronautics with real rocket parts, and test how reaction times and decision-making change under pressure – or just get blown away with the Lego Wind-Tunnel Simulator.

What makes us who we are is up for debate at. There’s Theatre Re’s The Nature of Forgetting, which looks at the neurobiological research into dementia and real-life experience of it. Or you can check out the festival’s ongoing collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, through a host of talks and experiments in the Faraway Forest. For sheer fun, catch Unlimited Theatre’s How I Hacked My Way into Space, the story of one man’s adventure told from where it happened – his garden shed.

is still the newish kid on the block, but alongside music this year from Bonobo, Laura Marling and Michael Kiwanuka, it has old hand Guerilla Science bringing its unique sense of fun, with workshops on lucid dreaming and sensory speed dating.

Guerilla Science will also host a gig on attraction and identity at , featuring sensory speed dating and personality tests. And a special life drawing session will offer the chance to get a different perspective, with the audience trying to draw the world as perceived by people with perceptual disorders.

has some serious chemistry kit at The Apothecary, where you can make your own bath bomb, while the festival’s Sigma tent explores our obsession with bringing animals back from extinction and the experience of synaesthesia.

Smaller-scale highlights

Highlights among the smaller festivals include sporting a science dome as part of its Out of this World theme, visitors to  snuggling up for a more traditional picnic-blanket approach to stargazing, and offering the relaxingly titled Tea and Theoretical Physics.

Makerspaces are on the rise, with SHMakerspace and its 3D printers at in Guildford. But if you’d rather break something than make it, ’s Wrekshop might be just the thing – though you may accidentally learn some electrical engineering in the process.

There’s lots on offer for kids too, with offering woodcraft and stargazing. Or they could learn about bees in the craft area at , attend the Jedi Training Academy at Bluedot or take some classes in the genie labs at Always the Sun.

In the wake of the world’s hottest year on record in 2016, festivals are taking a more focused approach to climate change, with low-carbon energy topping the bill in the science and tech pavilion at this year’s in Anglesey. You can try creating kinetic energy on pushbikes, explore how water turbines work, and create and race F1 cars. Or if you’re feeling more contemplative, you can listen in to the story of local mathematician William Jones, the man who proposed one of the most useful symbols of all time –  π (pi).

Planes, trains and automobiles

If you fancy venturing farther afield, we have some top tips from mainland Europe for you. If you’re a serious Björk fan, hurry to Barcelona in Spain. She’s headlining with a 4-hour DJ set at on 14 June, and her .

The festival runs concurrently with the ��ó�Բ���+D International Congress of Digital Culture and Creative Technologies (at which Bjork will also speak). The congress has an and the (you-have-to-be-there) “phosphere” installation by Daito Manabe and his Rhizomatiks studio, inspired by the process of mineral crystallisation.

Along with a line-up boasting the likes of The Weeknd and Lorde, Danish has a dedicated makerspace, where you can draw with 3D pens, laser cut and – perhaps most important for the festivalgoer –  make your own solar-powered cellphone charger so you can snap selfies powered by the sun.

The festival has also teamed up with Stop Spild af Mad (“Stop Waste of Food”) and Det Runde Bord (“The Round Table”) to stop food waste, using excess food to provide healthy and nutritious meals for asylum centres and shelters. And it’s hosting New Ů��С��Ƶ favourites The Yes Men in its Art Zone.

In the picturesque Hungarian city of Sopron, boasts a spectacular line-up of international musicians and a host of cultural treats, from fire-juggling to the Always Drinking Marching Band. There is also a healthy dose of science, in the form of logic and action games, mini-lectures and spectacular experiments in the festival’s science centre – as well as programmes on innovation and natural sciences from the University of West Hungary.

on Óbuda Island in Budapest, Hungary, promises performances that explore what it means to be human. Perhaps the star of the show is , choreographer Mourad Merzouki’s mesmerising dance exploration of the boundary between virtual and real life.

Alongside some leading electronic artists such as Ben Frost and William Basinski, in Brussels, Belgium, is showcasing the best tech-art crossovers, displaying the work of this year’s STARTS prizewinners. These include I’m Humanity by Etsuko Yakushimaru, which explores the future of music by encoding it in DNA.