Schools | National Science Week

Science Week 2020

The school theme of National Science Week 2020 is ‘Deep Blue: innovations for the future of our oceans’ and features the establishment of the Blue Economy CRC.

With this in mind, it will embrace the innovative technologies, capabilities and skills needed to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability of our oceans. It will feature insights and inquiries into workable solutions that generate healthy oceans, healthy economies and healthy communities.

School grants

Grants of up to $500 are available to help support National Science Week activities in schools. Applications are open until 3 April via the Australian Science Teachers Association. The grant round is open to all schools (pre-schools to senior secondary) to help them conduct a STEM related activity in Science Week.

Teaching Resource Book

The Deep Blue: Innovation for the future of our oceans teaching resource book (11.1 MB, PDF) has lesson plans, cases studies, activity ideas and links to resources for students from Foundation through to Year 10. There’s also a student journal (3.1 MB, PDF) intended for older students to record their ideas, from defining the problem posed on the suggested activities to debriefing the solutions they devise.

Deep Blue Poster

Print and display the Deep Blue poster (562 kB, PDF) in your classroom or school library.

Science Week 2019

Destination Moon: more missions, more science is the school theme for National Science Week in 2019.

This theme is a way for teachers and their students to discover past missions to the Moon and space programs that have solved some of the seemingly unsolvable problems—and current and future space programs, operations and missions. Many of these use big picture thinking in science to solve problems, and technology, engineering and mathematics to design new solutions. This will help forge our future paths in the areas of space operations, space science, Earth observations, positioning systems and communications.

School Grants

The school grant round for 2019 was open for applications until 5 April. Grants of up to $500 supporting school STEM activities in National Science Week were awarded to 219 schools. The grant round is administered by the Australian Science Teachers Association and funding is provided by the Australian Government.

Teaching Resource Book

The 76 page 2019 Resource Book of Ideas (24 MB, PDF) for National Science Week offers teachers and students the opportunity to investigate the people, space agencies, universities, and science organisations that are all delivering solutions in space science. There are also an Australian Space Science Timeline (6 MB, PDF) and a Student Journal (8 MB, PDF) available to download.

Destination Moon Poster

This high resolution Destination Moon poster (5.5 MB, PDF) is for printing and displaying in your classroom and school library. We’ve also got a pop-art colouring version (3.1 MB, PDF) of the poster for older children to try.

Science Week 2018

The school theme for National Science Week in 2018 is Game Changers and Change Makers. This could refer to individuals, teams, technologies or ideas – what does it suggest to you?

In developing the theme and the teaching resource book we took inspiration from three significant celebrations in 2018:

School grants

The school grant round closed on 23 April. The successful applicants were announced in May. The grant round is administered by the Australian Science Teachers Association.

Teaching Resource Book

The 88 page Game Changers and Change Makers teaching resource book (11.6 MB, PDF) is available to download and print. The resource book has resource ideas and detailed lesson plans fro classes from Foundation to Year 10.

Game Changers Poster

You can also download the Game Changers poster (660 kB, PDF) to print and display in your classroom or library.

Science Week 2017

The 2017 National Science Week teacher resource book will focus on Australia’s sustainability science and highlights those issues that are unique to Australia and our region.

Future Earth book

The Future Earth teaching resource is available as an interactive online flip book and as a downloadable PDF (18MB) that can be printed.

The resource book aim to raise awareness of sustainability science and all of the sciences – social, natural and applied – and encourage positive actions that make a direct contribution to the Earth becoming more sustainable.

Future Earth poster

The Future Earth poster has been created for schools to help them plan their Science Week activities. it lists highlight events in each state and territory and links to other great science resouces. Download and print your own A3 Future Earth poster (4MB, PDF).

Future Earth Initiative

Future Earth launched in 2015 and is a major 10-year international initiative to advance global sustainability science.

Future Earth is a global community of tens of thousands of world-class researchers, projects and institutes brought together around an international research agenda focusing on sustainability science.

The Academy of Science is developing a project office for Future Earth in Australia.

Future Earth’s 2025 vision addresses eight key challenges to global sustainability:

• Deliver water, energy, and food for all
• Decarbonise socio-economic systems to stabilise the climate
• Safeguard the terrestrial, freshwater and marine natural assets underpinning human well-being
• Build healthy, resilient and productive cities
• Promote sustainable rural futures
• Improve human health
• Encourage sustainable consumption and production patterns
• Increase social resilience to future threats.

School grants

Successful projects were announced in late May. The grant pool of $90 000 is provided by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

Science Week 2016

In 2016 we will embrace the ‘Technology’ in STEM, in particular autonomous technology, with the National Science Week school theme Drones, Droids and Robots.

The theme will centre on the real-world application of autonomous technologies in areas including agriculture, mining, manufacturing, medicine and space and deep ocean exploration. Of course, we will also look at how this technology has transformed our day-to-day lives – from robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers to automated pool cleaners.

Schools poster

The theme poster has been sent to every Australian preschool and school, and you can download and print your own copy (2.4 MB, PDF).

Teacher resource book

The Drones, Droids and Robots resource book is available as an interactive online eBook or via download (10 MB, PDF).

School grants

• Applications for school grants of up to $500 are now closed. The successful applicants were announced on 16 May 2016.

Science Week 2015

The school theme for National Science Week 2015 is Making waves – the science of light, based on the International Year of Light.

The Making waves: the science of light resource online eBook is now available.

The book was prepared  by the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA) teacher and contains an abbreviated curriculum map of the Australian Curriculum: Science covering years F-10. This has then been used to develop a curriculum map of light topics addressing most content descriptions from the Science Understanding and Science as a Human Endeavour sub-strands.

The book is available as an online eBook or as a 88 page PDF (12 MB) that can be printed.

The National Science Week theme poster for 2015 has been sent to all schools and is also available to download (3.3 MB, PDF).

2015 school grants

Congratulations to the 263 schools that have been successful in receiving grants of up to $500 to help them conduct a range and variety of science activities during National Science Week. More information.

If you’re a school who received a grant, here’s a media release template (184 kB, docx) and an example media release (185 kB, docx) to help you promote your involvement in National Science Week.