STEMex

2 pm

Position: Australian Environmental Education Science Educator

Outline: Take a journey beneath the waves to explore the marine world. Learn about some of incredible animals, their adaptations and this unique habitat.

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

POSTPONED TO AUGUST 17th

May 4th

2 pm

Position:Head, Neuroendocrinology of the Obese Brain Research Group

Outline:  What does a brain look and feel like? How do brains know when we’re full? How might junk food change our brain? Inside our skulls lies a grapefruit-sized squishy organ that is responsible for everything we do, feel, and think. Our brains and bodies communicate by chemicals produced by our bodies that travel in our blood. Our brains and bodies also communicate by wire-like structures called neurons that send electrical signals from everywhere in our bodies up to our heads and back again faster than you can blink. Both of these methods of communication can be damaged by not enough nutritious food or too much junk food.In this STEMex lesson, we’ll talk about:

• What your brain looks and feels like
• What your brain is made of (neurons, glia, astrocytes)
• How your brain knows when you’re hungry or full
• How junk food can change your brain

Year Level Suitability: Yrs 5 & 6

POSTPONED

May 18th

2pm

2pm

Outline: The growing human population is rapidly increasing its environmental footprint in the oceans. This is in part due to a construction boom in our seas. Structures such as seawalls, pylons, pontoons and marinas, are built for diverse purposes such as shoreline protection, recreational activities, energy generation and to facilitate communications. In areas of Australia, such as Sydney Harbour, more than 50% of the shoreline has been modified by seawalls. These marine urban structures destroy and replace natural habitats, and can modify the surrounding sea-floor, often with negative consequences on biodiversity. In particular, the flat and featureless surfaces of marine constructions provide little space for marine plants and animals to live, and few protective refuges from predators and environmental stressors, such as high temperatures. The Living Seawalls has developed an innovative approach to bringing marine life back to the thousands of kilometres of concrete coastlines around the world. Habitat features of natural shorelines, such as rock pools and crevices, which are missing from built infrastructure, are reintroduced in these structures using modular panels. The Living Seawalls panels increase the suitable habitat area for growth of seaweeds, shellfish, and other marine life. 

Yr Level Suitability:Yrs 5 & 6

2pm Cancelled

Outline:  What does a brain look and feel like? How do brains know when we’re full? How might junk food change our brain? Inside our skulls lies a grapefruit-sized squishy organ that is responsible for everything we do, feel, and think. Our brains and bodies communicate by chemicals produced by our bodies that travel in our blood. Our brains and bodies also communicate by wire-like structures called neurons that send electrical signals from everywhere in our bodies up to our heads and back again faster than you can blink. Both of these methods of communication can be damaged by not enough nutritious food or too much junk food.In this STEMex lesson, we’ll talk about:

• What your brain looks and feels like
• What your brain is made of (neurons, glia, astrocytes)
• How your brain knows when you’re hungry or full
• How junk food can change your brain

Year Level Suitability: Yrs 5 & 6

2pm

Outline:  What does a brain look and feel like? How do brains know when we’re full? How might junk food change our brain? Inside our skulls lies a grapefruit-sized squishy organ that is responsible for everything we do, feel, and think. Our brains and bodies communicate by chemicals produced by our bodies that travel in our blood. Our brains and bodies also communicate by wire-like structures called neurons that send electrical signals from everywhere in our bodies up to our heads and back again faster than you can blink. Both of these methods of communication can be damaged by not enough nutritious food or too much junk food.In this STEMex lesson, we’ll talk about:

• What your brain looks and feels like
• What your brain is made of (neurons, glia, astrocytes)
• How your brain knows when you’re hungry or full
• How junk food can change your brain

Year Level Suitability: Yrs 5 & 6

2pm

Position:Ice Core Technician, Glaciologist
Australian Antarctic Program Partnership
(University of Tasmania, CSIRO, Bureau of Meterology and the Australian Antarctic Division)

2pm

Outline:  Have you ever seen plastic litter on the ground or in the water? Have you ever heard about animals getting hurt because of plastic pollution?  Do you want to help protect the environment and wildlife?  In this presentation, we will learn about the negative effects of plastic pollution on the environment and wildlife, and how we can play a role in reducing it. You will learn about the sources of plastic waste, how it affects the environment and wildlife, and why it is important to reduce plastic usage and properly dispose of waste.

Year Level Suitability: 3-6

2pm

Outline: Between 200 and 2000 species go extinct every single year. Join Dr Erin Hahn as she talks about how science is used to protect endangered species. Dr Hahn isn’t your typical biologist. Rather than looking for scientific evidence out in nature, she goes hunting for clues in dusty old museums! Dr Hahn is a wildlife detective and she uses the information encoded in an animal’s DNA to figure which species need our help most and she provides advice on how to help them. Using modern science, Dr Hahn is turning the halls of the Australian National Wildlife Collection into a time machine that can help us turn back the clocks on wildlife extinctions.

Yr Level Suitability: 3-6

2pm

Position: Duty Veterinarian Australian Animal Health Laboratory, CSIRO

2pm

Dr. Phoebe Redford

(Back in 2025)
Position: 

Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, CSIRO

Outline:Would you ever think that someone who grew up on a farm would end up working in Paris, London, China, Japan or Canada? What about going from a school of 200 kids to speaking to politicians at Parliament House in Canberra? Or what if you were working as a labourer, could you end up photographing the world’s first coronavirus vaccine being given to an animal for the first time ever?! These are all things that I’ve been lucky enough to do during my career, and I’m not even old yet! There are so many exciting things you can do in the world of science and truly make a difference to the world we live in. And, importantly, it doesn’t matter where you come from, how smart you are, how cool (or uncool) you may think you are or that you don’t know what you want to be. If you really want to achieve something, you absolutely CAN! I’d like to tell you about my journey and hopefully inspire you to look beyond the boundary to see what you can do.
Yr Level Suitability: 3-4

2pm

Outline: 

Yr Level Suitability:Yrs

2pm

Outline: 
Yr Level Suitability: 

2pm

2pm

2 pm

Position: Victorian paleontologist

Outline: In 2016, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History (AAOD) was told about a potential discovery of fossilised dinosaur footprints on Karoola Station, 60 km northwest of the outback town of Winton, Queensland. Museum staff and palaeontologists visited the site, not expecting much, but what they observed was so amazing it defied belief: a 40 metre-long sauropod trackway, surrounded by footprints from all manner of Cretaceous critters! These include small theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs, and relatives of modern day crocs and turtles. Between 2018 and 2020, the Snake Creek Tracksite – which is about the length of two basketball courts – was relocated by AAOD staff from Karoola to the AAOD Museum, where it is now on public display. This amazing tracksite captures a snapshot of life in northeast Australia ~95 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the outback.

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

2 pm

Position:Ice Core Technician, Glaciologist
Australian Antarctic Program Partnership
(University of Tasmania, CSIRO, Bureau of Meterology and the Australian Antarctic Division)

May 5th

2pm

Outline: Life is complex and it is found everywhere on Earth, from deep in the crust to high in the skies. But what about on other planets? Do they have the ingredients to harbour life and, more importantly, did they have the conditions required to get life started? In this presentation, I’ll discuss where and how life got started on Earth and we’ll explore the most likely place(s) to search for life elsewhere in our solar system.

Yr Level Suitability: (Yrs 5-6)

2pm

• What your brain looks and feels like
• What your brain is made of (neurons, glia, astrocytes)
• How your brain knows when you’re hungry or full
• How junk food can change your brain

Yr Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

Position:  University of NSW

2pm

Position: Victorian paleontologist

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

Outline: The growing human population is rapidly increasing its environmental footprint in the oceans. This is in part due to a construction boom in our seas. Structures such as seawalls, pylons, pontoons and marinas, are built for diverse purposes such as shoreline protection, recreational activities, energy generation and to facilitate communications. In areas of Australia, such as Sydney Harbour, more than 50% of the shoreline has been modified by seawalls. These marine urban structures destroy and replace natural habitats, and can modify the surrounding sea-floor, often with negative consequences on biodiversity. In particular, the flat and featureless surfaces of marine constructions provide little space for marine plants and animals to live, and few protective refuges from predators and environmental stressors, such as high temperatures. The Living Seawalls has developed an innovative approach to bringing marine life back to the thousands of kilometres of concrete coastlines around the world. Habitat features of natural shorelines, such as rock pools and crevices, which are missing from built infrastructure, are reintroduced in these structures using modular panels. The Living Seawalls panels increase the suitable habitat area for growth of seaweeds, shellfish, and other marine life. 

Yr Level Suitability: Yrs 5 & 6

2pm

2pm

2pm

Outline: The growing human population is rapidly increasing its environmental footprint in the oceans. This is in part due to a construction boom in our seas. Structures such as seawalls, pylons, pontoons and marinas, are built for diverse purposes such as shoreline protection, recreational activities, energy generation and to facilitate communications. In areas of Australia, such as Sydney Harbour, more than 50% of the shoreline has been modified by seawalls. These marine urban structures destroy and replace natural habitats, and can modify the surrounding sea-floor, often with negative consequences on biodiversity. In particular, the flat and featureless surfaces of marine constructions provide little space for marine plants and animals to live, and few protective refuges from predators and environmental stressors, such as high temperatures. The Living Seawalls has developed an innovative approach to bringing marine life back to the thousands of kilometres of concrete coastlines around the world. Habitat features of natural shorelines, such as rock pools and crevices, which are missing from built infrastructure, are reintroduced in these structures using modular panels. The Living Seawalls panels increase the suitable habitat area for growth of seaweeds, shellfish, and other marine life. 

Yr Level Suitability:Yrs 5 & 6

2pm

Outline: Have you ever wondered if your dog could catch your cold? We live and interact with animals every day. We have pets, we go to the zoo, we keep animals on farms and we share our parks and gardens with wildlife. Us humans are really not all that different to animals – we all have to eat, drink, sleep and we all have eyes and ears and noses! But what about our diseases? Can humans catch a disease from animals? Can animals catch diseases from us?! And how does the health of our environment impact on the health of both humans and animals? We are learning more and more every day about the fascinating links between animal, human and environmental health – and how important these links are to the future health of all life on our planet. In this session we’ll take a closer look at some examples of where animal and human health have collided in the past, and what we can learn from these events to prevent more disease outbreaks in the future.Dr Tristan Reid completed a Bachelor of Veterinary Science at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Science in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London.  He is one of the the Duty Veterinarians at the CSIRO Australian Center for Disease Preparedness.

Yr Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

2pm

Position: Australian Environmental Education Science Educator

Outline: Take a journey beneath the waves to explore the marine world. Learn about some of incredible animals, their adaptations and this unique habitat.

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

Position: Environmental Water Resource Planner, Melb. Water

Outline: Water is essential for life in our rivers, creeks, estuaries and wetlands. Water gets taken out of our rivers for a variety of uses, so we need to carefully plan how we ensure there is enough left in the environment for the creatures that rely upon it, like our unique platypus. In this session we’ll look at the role of environmental water in protecting animals such as the platypus, and what you can do to help ensure a healthy future for our waterways.

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

Postponed due to Lockdown

Position: Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, CSIRO

Outline: Would you ever think that someone who grew up on a farm would end up working in Paris, London, China, Japan or Canada? What about going from a school of 200 kids to speaking to politicians at Parliament House in Canberra? Or what if you were working as a labourer, could you end up photographing the world’s first coronavirus vaccine being given to an animal for the first time ever?! These are all things that I’ve been lucky enough to do during my career, and I’m not even old yet! There are so many exciting things you can do in the world of science and truly make a difference to the world we live in. And, importantly, it doesn’t matter where you come from, how smart you are, how cool (or uncool) you may think you are or that you don’t know what you want to be. If you really want to achieve something, you absolutely CAN! I’d like to tell you about my journey and hopefully inspire you to look beyond the boundary to see what you can do.

Year Level Suitability: 3-4

2pm

Position: Associate Professor & Head of Neuroendocrinology of Obese Brain Research Group, RMIT

Outline: What does a brain look and feel like? How do brains know when we’re full? How might junk food change our brain? Inside our skulls lies a grapefruit-sized squishy organ that is responsible for everything we do, feel, and think. Our brains and bodies communicate by chemicals produced by our bodies that travel in our blood. Our brains and bodies also communicate by wire-like structures called neurons that send electrical signals from everywhere in our bodies up to our heads and back again faster than you can blink. Both of these methods of communication can be damaged by not enough nutritious food or too much junk food.

In this STEMex lesson, we’ll talk about:

• What your brain looks and feels like
• What your brain is made of (neurons, glia, astrocytes)
• How your brain knows when you’re hungry or full
• How junk food can change your brain

Year Level Suitability: 5-6

July 15th

2pm

Outline: Dr. Kate Charlton-Robb is the Founding Director and Head of Research at the Marine Mammal Foundation. With over 17 years’ experience researching dolphins across southern Australia, Kate achieved a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Freshwater and Marine Ecology and Zoology and a Doctor of Philosophy. Her research led to the formal description and naming of a new Australian species of dolphin, the Burrunan dolphin, Tursiops australis. Kate has instigated and supervised numerous applied marine mammal research projects. Kate has numerous peer- reviewed scientific publications aimed at informing positive conservation and management outcomes of marine mammals. A highlight of Kate’s career was personally meeting Sir David Attenborough in 2013.

Yr Level Suitability: 5-6

2pm

2pm

2pm

2pm

2pm

Position:Acting Director Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery

Outline: Did you know that parasites are all around us? Some you might know well – like head lice or fleas on your cat or dog. Other types of parasites can cause diseases in animals or humans. Professor Kathy Andrews is scientist who is trying to discover new medicines for a parasite disease called malaria. She also loves talking about science and is the author and producer of four interesting and fun children’s books about different kinds of science including parasites, nanotechnology, forensic science and protein crystal science. In this STEMex lesson Professor Kathy will read her book about parasites and talk about what is it like to be a parasite scientist and author.  (Note: Strictly limited to 4 classrooms of up to 25 students.  Each student will receive a copy of Professor Andrews children’s book  featured in this presentation!)

Suitability: Yrs 3-6

2pm

2pm

2pm

CANCELLED