Scientists, experts and event organisers are available for interview throughout the ‘week’.
Here are WA highlights from the national festival that reaches more than 3 million people through 2,500+ events. National Science Week will run 15 to 23 August 2026.
Direct contact details for each event listed below.
Contact national publicist Tanya Ha for contacts and tips: [email protected] or 0404 083 863.
Highlights for Western Australia:
- Retro caravan clinics
the fleet of caravans that transformed chronic disease – Busselton
- Costa from Gardening Australia
returns to Nannup Flower and Garden Festival
- Spinifex cookie dough to repair mine sites
and other seedy stories from Kings Park scientists
- Perth’s six seasons
and the links between fire and flowers revealed by Noongar educator – Kings Park
- Real CSI careers – Bentley
- Most of the universe is missing – Nedlands
- Strike gold and brew elephant toothpaste after dark – Kalgoorlie
- A laser tour of the Collie night sky
- Orchids threatened by social media – Kings Park
- Scitech for trans and gender diverse WA
- Flower power
what is Australia’s most amazing wildflower?
More on these below including contact details for interview.
Or find more stories in your area at ScienceWeek.net.au/events.
Visit the Media Centre for all media releases and images.
The fleet of caravans that transformed chronic disease – Busselton
In 1966 a small fleet of caravans carrying health researchers arrived at the City of Busselton to survey some 3,400 adults about their lifestyles and health risk.
From these humble beginnings grew one of the world’s leading long-term community health studies: for the past 60 years more than 20,000 participants have helped generate over 600 scientific publications on heart disease, diabetes, lung health and more.
For decades this community partnership has helped shaped the modern understanding of chronic health conditions. Explore the global legacy of the Busselton Health Study Biobank (complete with vintage caravans) in a special anniversary exhibition in Mitchell Park this National Science Week.
Monday 17 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/celebrating-60-years-of-the-busselton-health-study-a-journey-of-discovery/busselton
Media enquiries: Michael Hunter, [email protected] or 08 9754 0548.
Costa returns to Nannup Flower and Garden Festival along with Sophie Thomson, Faye Arcaro and more – Nannup
Costa, Sophie Thomson and all your favourite Gardening Australia presenters are tackling edible ecosystems with the theme “Grow, Gather, Feast” at the 29th Nannup Flower and Garden Festival.
The 2026 Festival puts the spotlight on gardens as living laboratories in the search for a sustainable food future.
Between 7-16 August a series of kitchen and garden workshops will explore topics like seasonal growing, bush foraging and eco-friendly gardening in your backyard, balcony or bush block.
Keen gardeners (and interested amateurs) can attend practical demonstrations, swap seeds for future planting and learn new skills from a diverse range of food cultures.
Current and former Gardening Australia presenters will be attending over the two weekends of the Festival. This weekend it’s Costa and Millie Ross.
Friday 7 August-Sunday 16 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/nannup-flower-and-garden-festival-grow-gather-feast/nannup/
Media enquiries: Emmi Taylor, [email protected] or 0400 770 175.
Spinifex cookie dough to repair mine sites, and other seedy stories – Kings Park
- Cookie dough could be the key to rehabilitating mine sites. These sites are like moonscapes – arid and inhospitable – but can be brought back to life if soft spinifex (Triodia pungens) seeds can germinate, take hold and survive. Scientist are developing a ‘cookie dough’ like mixture they can add spinifex seeds to that will feed them, protect them, attract water and keep away pests as they germinate and grow.
- Local water lily species (Nymphaea lukei) that live in coastal freshwater wetlands are under threat from salt water intrusion. The lilies are very short lived and their seeds don’t like being dried. Scientists are trying to find ways to successfully bank the seeds.
- The seeds of critically endangered Bussell’s spider orchid (Caladnia busselliana) won’t germinate without a particular fungi partner. Conservation efforts are bringing it back from the brink.
Meet the hidden heroes behind these and other seeds who are dedicating their careers to improve restoration and conservation of Western Australia's native flora.
Visitors to the Western Australia Botanic Garden can take a self-guided tour, find story panels hidden in the garden, learn about the resident plants and researchers, and complete a journey passport. People who return a completed passport receive one of the five collectible flora and seed pins, custom-designed by scientists.
Saturday 15 – Friday 21 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-hidden-life-of-seeds-national-science-week-with-kings-park-science/perth
Media enquiries: Emily Denham, [email protected] or 08 9480 3688.
Kings Park Science communicator Eugenie Au and scientists are available for media interviews.
Perth’s six seasons and the links between fire and flowers revealed by Noongar educator – Kings Park
Perth has six seasons; ‘quenda’ is the Noongar word for the Southern short-nosed bandicoot who live at Kings Park; fire helps the flowering process of ‘balga’ grass tree, which produces stems that are used as fire sticks, resins used for tools, and flowers eaten and chewed like chewing gum.
These are some of the things Rickeeta Walley can talk about. She’s an artist and Noongar educator at Kaarta Koomba (Kings Park and Botanic Garden).
In 2023, she joined her father performing a Welcome to Country at a Harry Styles concert that went viral. This National Science Week she is taking people on one-hour walks on Country, sharing the traditional scientific practices and knowledges of the Noongar people, from detailing the way the six seasons provide for guidelines for environmental and ecological sustainability to revealing local plant species and how they are managed through physical chemistry, fire-processing, and eco-engineering, for food and tool resources.
Thursday 20 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/noongar-two-way-learning-walk-at-kings-park/perth
Media enquiries: Emily Denham, [email protected] or 08 9480 3688.
Rickeeta Walley is available for media interviews.
Real CSI careers – Bentley
The Australia and New Zealand Forensic Science Society's Student Representative Group hosts a careers night with practitioners from digital forensics, forensic archaeology, wildlife forensics, DNA and entomology at Curtin University.
The hybrid-style event runs as speed-conversations and/or a panel discussion depending on numbers; registration required for catering.
Tuesday 18 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/the-evolution-of-forensic-science-careers-speak-with-professionals-in-the-field
Media enquiries: Michael Adamos, ANZFSS Student Representative Group, [email protected] or 0427 667 799.
Most of the universe is missing – Nedlands
For the universe to look the way it does – for it to exist at all – there has to be something out there besides the ordinary matter that makes up you, me and everything we touch. Dark matter is invisible, it should be spread everywhere, and nobody has found it yet.
Dr Jeremy Bourhill of the University of Western Australia designs quantum sensors to hunt for it, as part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics. He explains how the Australia-wide search is progressing and what a discovery would actually mean.
One of his detectors has already taken an unexpected detour into the everyday world: a device he invented to search for ultralight dark matter is now patented technology being developed to make safer pharmaceuticals. Presented by the National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip.
Thursday 20 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/australias-search-for-the-missing-part-of-the-universe
Media enquiries: Jade McKenzie, The National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip, [email protected]
Strike gold and brew elephant toothpaste after dark – Kalgoorlie
Organisations from across the Goldfields region will come together for an evening of hands-on science at Science After Dark, featuring robotics, microscopes and messy experiments for all ages.
Visitors can try robotics with the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA, become a “sun detective” to learn how sunscreen blocks UV, examine a thousand-year-old local fossil, use VR goggles to explore the mining world underfoot, and try their hand at gold panning – plus a dedicated zone for the littlest scientists.
Thursday 20 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/science-after-dark-4/kalgoorlie
Media enquiries: Barbara Howard, [email protected] or 08 9021 8533.
A laser tour of the Collie night sky – Collie
Astronomers give a laser-guided tour of the night sky over Collie, picking out planets, stars, constellations and other cosmic wonders, then hand over high-quality telescopes for a closer look and stay to answer questions.
The evening opens indoors with an Astronomy 101 session – space videos, animations and activities pitched at children and adults alike – so everyone knows what to look for before heading outside.
If the weather closes in, the whole program runs indoors instead, with telescope demonstrations, solar system games, Mars Curiosity landing footage and space challenges including Toilets in Space.
Wednesday 19 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/stargazing-astro-adventure-mapping-the-night-sky
Media enquiries: Sara Cole, Collie Public Library, [email protected] or 08 9734 9042.
Orchids threatened by social media - liked to death – Kings Park
Social media popularity is threatening some of Australia's most delicate orchid species, attracting well-meaning nature lovers to sensitive sites in destructive numbers, a recent study revealed.
Study co-author Dr Belinda Davis wants people to help protect these orchids. Based at Kings Park Science, she manages the only collection in WA of orchid seeds, friendly fungi and a living collection of orchids.
She will be joining Dr Magali Wright from Landscape Recovery Foundation, Tasmania for an evening talk about enjoying orchids in the wild while minimising harm, drawing on their personal experiences working with orchids.
Friday 4 September. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/liked-to-death-how-social-media-is-threatening-australias-orchids/kings-park/
Media enquiries: Emily Denham, [email protected] or 08 9480 3688
Kings Park science communicator Eugenie Au and WA orchid expert Belinda Davis are available for media interviews. Dr Davis can be filmed in the lab and working in the glasshouse with rare orchids in full bloom.
Scitech for trans and gender diverse WA – West Perth, WA
Transfolk WA and Scitech open the centre for an evening built for trans and gender diverse Western Australians, beginning with a Welcome to Country and then the run of the exhibits at your own pace.
Trans and gender diverse volunteers will be on hand throughout, and the space is sensory-considered: lighting adjusted, quiet spaces available, earplugs and fidget tools on hand, and Auslan interpretation provided.
Information on study options, careers, community programs and further learning will be available for anyone looking for a way into STEM.
Saturday 12 September: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/transfolk-scitech
Media enquiries: Sam Gibbings, Transfolk WA, [email protected]
What do you think is Australia’s most amazing wildflower? – online
ABC Science wants Australians to discover our hidden “flower power”, the kind you find in botanical gardens rather than hippie communes.
With the help of experts, ABC Science has selected ten flowering plants from across the country.
Not just another banksia or waratah, but blooms from the unsung understory that also do something unbelievable. These ten wildflowers are more than just a pretty face; each one hides a surprising superpower. The public will decide which is the most amazing.
Voting to decide Australia’s most amazing wildflower will start just before National Science Week in August, with the winning bloom announced on Friday August 21 in a live broadcast on Radio National.
The shortlist:
- Bladderwort (Utricularia) – Traps and digests insects inside tiny floating “bladders”
- Star flower (Calytrix) – Changes colour like a ‘traffic-light’ to direct pollinators
- Flannel flower (Actinotus) – Blooms from bushfire ashes like a floral phoenix
- Flying duck orchid (Caleana) – Traps insects for pollination and looks like a duck!
- Mulla mulla (Ptilotus) – Thrives, and flowers, in tough, hot arid environments
- Murnong/yam daisy (Microseris) – Provided a significant year-round nutritious food for Indigenous people 
- Richea scoparia – Survives extreme cold and feeds snow skinks
- Creamy candle (Stackhousia) – Looks like a candle and emits a sweet fragrance at night
- Triggerplant (Stylidium) – Hits insects with pollen using a catapult-like trigger
- Underground orchid (Rhizanthella) – Lives underground and looks like a tiny demogorgan.
Wednesday 5 August – Friday 21 August. To find out more and vote, go to www.abc.net.au/wildflowers.
For interviews with Dr Ann Jones, contact Rob Caulley, ABC Publicity, [email protected].
About National Science Week
National Science Week is Australia’s annual opportunity to meet scientists, discuss hot topics, do science and celebrate its contribution to our lives. Science drives economic and social change – from safe and nutritious food to reducing cancer deaths; from smart phones to AI; from under Antarctica’s ice floes to distant planets.
First held in 1997, National Science Week has become one of Australia’s largest festivals. Last year about 3 million people participated in more than 2,500 registered events and activities.
National Science Week 2026 runs from Saturday 15 to Sunday 23 August. Event details can be found at www.scienceweek.net.au.
National Science Week is proudly supported by the Australian Government, alongside key partners Questacon, CSIRO, the Australian Science Teachers Association, and ABC Science.
