National Science Week in Australian Schools

 

Schools and students across Australia celebrated National Science Week 2022 from 13 – 21 August.

What is National Science week in Australian Schools?

National Science Week in Australian Schools is an annual celebration of science and technology.

“National Science Week is an Opportunity to present to people… how fun and engaging science can be.”

Clea Hooper, Project Officer, Australian Science Teachers Association

Every year the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA) nominates a theme for schools which is also adopted across the nation.

This year’s theme was Glass – More Than Meets the Eye 2022.

National Science Week in Australian Schools is managed by ASTA.

Who participates in National Science Week in Australian Schools?

Clea Hooper, Project Officer at ASTA, advises National Science Week activities and grants are essentially available from kindergarten to Year 12.

“We’ve got a very strong take up right from preschool or kindy and a lot of them will actually take activities out of the resource books.

It is open to all schools in Australia, private, catholic, independent, all schools are eligible for the grant, schools right across the spectrum get involved.”

How do schools celebrate National Science Week?

According to Clea Hooper, there are many different ways schools celebrate National Science Week.

“A lot of schools put on a science fair, that could be during school or after school and they will put up a whole lot of stations around the school or school hall where students can go and try out different experiments and do lots of fun things, look through microscopes. That’s a really popular one.

I’ve had people do science trails where they will have to follow clues and it will take them around where they will have to learn about various different environmental science things, plants and animals in the area, these sort of ‘hunts’ they can do.”

At St Aloysius College,Victoria students could visit showings of documentaries from the international science film festival throughout the week.

“This created an experience for students to see other students and graduates create work that showed their passions. Creating this environment for the students provided a space for students to deepen their understanding of science in the field.”

Chloe Cornell, Science Leader at St Aloysius College, Melbourne

Cleo adds many schools conduct activities related to the National Science Week theme.

“This year with glass we had people doing lots of fun stuff like making kaleidoscopes… learning about reflection and refraction of light. We taught them how to make their own telescopes, students at a higher level may be going around doing research projects on things that are really topical to do with the theme that year.”

As National Science Week continued at St Aloysius College, Melbourne various experiments under the umbrella of “Glass – More Than Meets the Eye” were completed.

“We created light globes and crystals. Within the classroom discussions were occurring about the properties of glass.To highlight the achievements of our junior students we held a competition for the best cell model between our year 8 classes. Students from years 7 and 9 were asked to vote on the model they thought best represented either a human or plant cell.”

Chloe Cornell, Science Leader at St Aloysius College, Melbourne.

Why is National Science Week in Australian Schools important?

Cleo believes National Science Week in Australian schools shows students just how fun and exciting science is and “all the different ‘wow’ moments that exist in science”.

National Science Week in Australian schools may encourage students to pursue a career in science.

“People seem to think science is people wearing white coats in a laboratory looking at test tubes, but science is so much more than that.”

“We need kids to understand that it’s a really fun and exciting career path.” Cleo said.

“The main feature of it is all about encouraging an interest and an understanding in it and building our next generation of scientists, one of the most important careers, we certainly can never have too many scientists.”

National Science Week at St Aloysius focused on creating opportunities for all forms of learners.

“This is important as it can help ignite the passion for science allowing science to be seen in new ways that they may not have experienced before.”

Chloe Cornell, Science Leader, St Aloysius College, Melbourne

Choosing a school for your child can be difficult, if you wish to receive further information please see Choosing a School NSW 38 or Choosing a School VIC 34.