National Carbon Counter project proves a hit as individuals, families and schools pledge to lower emissions.

Media release: 25 August, 2020

More than 11,000 people have signed up to Carbon Counter, the countrywide challenge produced by the ABC Science Unit for National Science Week.

The challenge shows families, individuals and schools how to reduce their contributions to global warming by making simple and easy changes to everyday routines.

Sunday 23 August 2020

Highlights from the FINAL DAY of National Science Week

62 events, 202 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• National: Lifehacks to cut your carbon and your fuel bills
• National: Discover new species, map wildlife, track the effects of climate change
• ACT: Find out what robot makers, illustrators and Indigenous storytellers have in common
• SA: Giant wombats versus ichthyosaurs: which would win? Adelaide palaeontologists fight over which is the best fossil
• SA: Forget the Telstra shop. Your smartphone came from the stars. Find out how.
• VIC: 76 women in science at sea: catch up with Ili Baré’s compelling documentary, The Leadership
• VIC: Possible Impossibles: what’s next for the human species?
• WA: Sign me up!—four scientists and an Auslan interpreter in Bunbury
• Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Also today:

• QLD: MalignancyVR: fight lung cancer in a virtual reality game
• QLD: Are the mozzies in your backyard friends or foes?
• NSW: ‘Wobbly Machine’ – see the drawings and mechanical sculptures from the scientist Steven Durbach who became the artist Sid Sledge

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Saturday 22 August 2020

Highlights from day eight of National Science Week

115 events, 235 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• National: Discover storms on Jupiter in a virtual reality tour of the solar system
• National: Discover new species, map wildlife, track the effects of climate change
• NSW: Fit or fat? How your postcode affects your health
• NSW: ID a frog and meet a radioecologist on the Sydney Science Trail
• VIC: How is nature good for your health and wellbeing?
• VIC: Phasmid of the opera: performances featuring music, dance and a stick insect
• TAS: What microbes are growing in your sourdough?
• TAS: Make a canoe and hear about local Aboriginal engineering and navigation

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Also today:

• QLD: Create your avatar and see Rainbow Beach turtles hatching, meet the Mary River cod, find out Gympie’s frogs and more at the STEAMzone Science Festival in 3D
• WA: Astronomy meets word-smithery—who will win the inaugural ICRAR Monologue Competition?
• SA: The fight for the Great Australian Bight
• NT: A two-headed shark and other behind-the-scenes secrets of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Coming up:

Fossil fight, wildlife under fire, and the astro-origins of your smartphone – see a preview of Sunday’s highlights.

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Friday 21 August 2020

Highlights from day seven of National Science Week

171 events, 325 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• National: Take a virtual reality trip around the solar system
• VIC: Taste tomorrow: want to try some fake meat, sautéed spider and lobster lollies?
• VIC: What will beer taste like in the future?
• ACT: Who are the Indigenous STEM leaders, from maths to medicine?
• NSW: Stones, bones, irrigation, and eel farming: hear about Australia’s first engineers
• SA: What can you learn about gravitational wave detection via Minecraft?
• NT: STEMfit: Can sport kick off a love for science and technology?
• WA: Shrink your plastic footprint with a sea shepherdess

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Also today:

• NSW: How Eden lost its little penguins, and got them back again
• WA: Allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases and COVID-19: Q&A with an immunologist
• QLD: How to keep the Great Barrier Reef great

Coming up:

Dancing with stick insects, healing nature, and what’s in your sourdough? – see a preview of Saturday’s highlights

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Thursday 20 August 2020

Highlights from day six of National Science Week

209 events, 401 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• NSW: When artificial light becomes pollution
• NSW: How do you take climate change action that works?
• NSW: What do algae have to do with beer making?
• QLD: Finding Nemo—and checking the water quality of his home
• QLD: Cover coming eco-anxiety to survive and thrive: Generation Z to the rescue
• SA: What’s good and bad behaviour in space?
• SA: How can you tell good science from bad? Ask the experts (if you trust them!)
• SA: Discover the love-hate relationship between butterflies and ants
• TAS: Beauty from the ashes: recovery after bushfires
• WA: A visit to the (ancient) beach – Kalgoorlie-Boulder style
• NT: Water, desalination and sugary drinks—water is life in Arnhem Land
• National: Lifehacks to cut your carbon and your fuel bills

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Also today:

• ACT: Science experiments and games for people with disabilities
• VIC: Take a ‘Dungeons & Doctorates’ podcast journey to the fantasy world of Firamustus
• VIC: How to grow an urban woody meadows

Coming up:

Storms on Jupiter, swim with sea dragons, and Australia’s first scientists – see a preview of Friday’s highlights

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Wednesday 19 August 2020

Highlights from day five of National Science Week

342 events, 588 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• ACT:  In court, is scientific evidence the same as legal proof?
• NSW: Holy bat-poop! What bugs are spread by flying faeces?
• NSW: Talking climate change like your life depends on it, with Tim Flannery and Rebecca Huntley
• NSW: From supermassive black holes to Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador—meet Lisa Harvey-Smith
• QLD: Pandemic proofing the future
• QLD: Humpback whales—the biggest tourists regularly visiting the Gold Coast
• SA: Help SA’s endangered bandicoots find prickly new homes
• TAS: What can four different brews teach you about the science of beer?
• WA: Tiny food for huge whale sharks
• WA: How much sunlight is good for your health?
• WA: Can big data help save the quokka, koala and wallaby?
• WA: Curtin University Big Watermelon Experiment
• WA: Oceans vs space: the battle of the final frontiers
• VIC: Science and technology saving lives in natural disasters

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Coming up:

Herding caterpillars, good science, and bad behaviour in space – see a preview of Thursday’s highlights.

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Tuesday 18 August 2020

Highlights from day four of National Science Week

289 events, 536 competitions and online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country.

• NSW: Should the Moon have legal rights?
• NSW: Is your diet good for the planet?
• WA: Calling all innovators: ideas wanted to change the future of our oceans-for the better
• NT: Will the Territory be the centre of Australia’s new space race?
• TAS:  Are bushfires good for plankton?
• VIC: Vaccines, coronavirus, criminal trials, and climate change: trusting science in a time of crisis
• QLD:  Lasers, robots, 3D-printing: what will the factory of the future look like?
• NSW: Why can’t some people get the essential medicines they need?
• TAS: Celebrate International Pinot Noir Day by finding out where your pinot get its flavour and aroma from
• VIC: What’s wrong with ultra-processed food

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

Also today:

• Darwin: Build your own solar powerbank workshop
• Darwin: Meet the sea turtles and the barramundi at the Turtle Rehabilitation Centre
• Adelaide: It’s 2050: meet seven siblings from the future  
• Adelaide: How do you explore archaeology underwater?

Coming up:

Beer, bandicoots, bat-poop, black holes, and science in the courtroom – see a preview of Wednesday’s highlights.

National Science Week 2020 runs from 15 to 23 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for more events and activities: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Great National Science Week stories featuring top women in STEM up for grabs now around Australia.

• Career advice from astrophysicist Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith
• Learn why maggots are our new best friends
• Find out what robot makers, illustrators and Indigenous storytellers have in common
• Catch up with Ili Baré’s Australian compelling documentary, The Leadership
• Why is geotechnical engineering the best job in the world?
• Explore the reality of women in STEM, and ways to address gender inequality in the industry

These are just a few of the events and activities happening across Australia during National Science Week (August 15 to 23).

If you’re after more great ideas for highly visual stories, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at www.scienceinpublic.com.au/science-week, and on Twitter at @SciWKMedia.

Great INDIGENOUS stories up for grabs now around Australia.

• Meet Indigenous STEM leaders from maths to medicine—Canberra
• Learn from 60,000 years of Aboriginal astronomy and Indigenous knowledge—Sydney
• Water, desalination and sugary drinks—Arnhem Land
• Bull kelp, bush foods and resin chemistry at TMAG—Tasmania
• Make a canoe and hear about local Aboriginal engineering and navigation—Tasmania

These are just a few of the Indigenous science events and activities happening across Australia during National Science Week (August 15 to 23).

If you’re after more great ideas for highly visual stories, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at www.scienceinpublic.com.au/science-week, and on Twitter at @SciWKMedia.