The national festival that reaches more than 2 million people through thousands of events is back from 10 to 18 August.
Entertainment, business, environment, food and wine, Indigenous media, the arts, health, technology, farming and agriculture, lifestyle, education, LGBTQI+, and disability media…National Science Week offers stories for every round.
Here are a few early picks:
- Sydney: Can robots be conscious; will AI change our brains; and how do a mass of cells think, act and become self-aware? Step into a future where mind and matter converge with Paul Davies.
- Sydney: “It’s a vagina, not a piña colada!” Meet the internet’s OB/GYN Dr Jen Gunter
- Melbourne: DNA and reasonable doubt: the inside story of how scientific evidence overturned the murder conviction of Kathleen Folbigg, 20 years post-imprisonment.
- Brisbane: Should we 3D print polypills and other medicines for better health? Find out, then design your own with customisable colour, flavour, texture and even braille symbols.
- Dubbo, NSW: Oysters, crooning frogs, climate change, backyard astronomy and the stars of National Geographic’s SHARKFEST and Bull Shark Bandits headline Science@Heart.
- Canberra: Meet the inventor of green steel, turning waste into a business opportunity.
- Alice Springs: Paleo-art and the painstaking process of attaching flesh, fur, skin and scales on extinct megafauna that roamed Central Australia millions of years ago (Late Miocene Epoch).
- Adelaide: Join galactic green thumbs prepping extreme plants for missions to the Moon and Mars.
- Hobart & Launceston: Get hooked on Nature’s soap operas in a photographic exploration of the secret lives, dramas and quirks of Tasmanian wildlife.
- Westbury, TAS: What do dog vomit, moon shit and demon droppings have in common? Discover the unexpected beauty and ecological value of slime moulds with Dr Sally Bryant AM.
- Kondanin, WA: Wadjak and Balardong Noongar man, Dylan Collard, leads a workshop on traditional axe (kodj) making, fire-by-friction and tracing animal tracks.
- National: Embrace your dark side. Contribute to a study on light pollution before the Milky Way disappears from view and vote in ABC’s national poll on epic ‘dark skies’ sightings.
- Online: Join a citizen science army and supersize CSIRO’s ‘Great Koala Count’, alongside heat-seeking drones, detector dogs, visual surveys and apps.
National Science Week is one of Australia’s largest festivals and was first held in 1997. Last year about 2.7 million people participated in more than 1,862 events and activities. It is proudly supported by the Australian Government, CSIRO, the Australian Science Teachers Association, and the ABC.
Visit ScienceWeek.net.au/events to find stories in your area. Media centre here. Images for media here. General media enquiries: Tanya Ha – tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au / 0404 083 863 or Shelley Thomas – shelley@scienceinpublic.com.au / 0416 377 444.
