Getting involved

Getting Involved

There are a variety of ways you can get your students, class, year level, school and community involved in National Science Week. Your participation can be as simple as a display in the school library, or as complex as a whole-school science fair. Plan your activities around the schools theme, Australian Biodiversity or develop your own ideas and projects.

Click on the map and see what Science Week activities happened near you in 2009!!

Some of the ways schools and students join in National Science Week is by:

holding a family science evening, a crazy scientist day or a science breakfast
hosting a scientists picnic or a science camp
setting up team challenges or hosting a debate on a hot science topic
organising a science olympics or a roving playground science show
inviting guest speakers or hosting a scientist-in-residence
organising a Science and Literature Festival
setting activities, challenges and projects from the ASTA Resource Book Astronomy: Science Without Limits for students, families, or other teachers
going on excursions, field trips and school visits
participating in local and national 2010 Science Week events
Apply for an ASTA school grant to help run a school-based event. Contact your state/territory Science Teachers Association National Science Week Representative for more ideas

Then, once your event is all planned register it online.

What should a National Science Week event be?

A National Science Week event should:

be fun for the participants
be focused on quality science outcomes
be supportive of your science curriculum
encourage the participants to want to try more science
raise the general profile of science within the community

Running your own National Science Week event

Choice of events

National Science Week events can happen in your:

Classroom

School

Local community
Wider community
District
State

The type of event you wish to develop will depend on the degree of support you have within your school and community. The first step is to decide what type of event will meet your needs. If you have never run a science event before, it is suggested you try starting with activities in your classroom. For information on how to manage the event of your choice refer to the section on “Planning a National Science Week Event” below.

Planning a National Science Week Event

Individual classroom-based activities

Decide on the format for your event
Will you plan activities for the students or will they have input in to the activities or investigation?
Plan the activities remembering to accommodate the time frame in which you must operate. This might be an afternoon session each day of National Science Week in a primary class but in a secondary school you might be limited to using double lessons.
Collect the materials you will need before you start. If your challenge requires lots of small bits (straws, tape etc) then set out a minimum amount to begin with and top up as required.
Introduce the activity to the class as a whole, making sure that you set the necessary parameters to make the task manageable e.g. if you are having an investigation into paper planes then you will need to set limitations for flight tests to avoid chaos.
Encourage students to have input into the type of boundaries they see as being necessary - this will give them ownership of the conditions rather than seeing it as your set of rules.
Establish your expectations clearly before the students begin. For example, if you require that students record in detail the findings of their investigation then this needs to be stated. Students need practice in recording the necessary information as they go and then turning this into a formal report at the conclusion of the investigation. Students who are not practiced in recording and reporting their findings will need assistance with this irrespective of their age. If this is a new experience for them it will save time and give more direction to the investigation if you provide the format for the tables and some key phrases to guide their investigation.
Students will also need instructions and guidance to investigate phenomena, which require repeat testing. They will think that if they do it once then that is what always happens. Repeat testing is an important component of scientific investigation and students should be learning this as they proceed.
When planning an investigation, particularly one where students are unfamiliar with the topic and/or the materials involved then time must be allocated to allow them to investigate the qualities of the materials. It’s like a “play stage” in learning. This is necessary for all new materials and some students will need to do this irrespective of their age or stage of development. It is an important component of learning. If you hurry this investigative stage then the outcomes will be less clear and the student less satisfied with the findings as being “scientifically sound”.
It will help students to know before they begin how much time they have to work on the problem. Plan the conclusion of the experience with a sharing time where each student or group of students shares their findings and recommendations for either further investigations or improvement on technique with the class (their fellow scientists)
Ensure that some type of celebration is built into the event. If this is a special Science Week event in your class then Science Week participation certificates are a good reward for the students who took part. These can be presented at assembly or similar event - perhaps by a visiting scientist.
Take some photographs and display these, combined with students work in an appropriate public or school venue e.g. the town library or town hall/ school library or foyer.
Write up a brief description of the event and congratulate students who did well in your school newsletter. Community and district and regional local newspapers will also publish this material if accompanied by a good photo opportunity of local students. This is good publicity for the school, the students and science.

Ideas

Put on a science show, or have a scientist visit your class to run an experiment.
Make a class gnomon. See ASTA Resource Book Astronomy: Science Without Limits p13.
Put on a class display in the library based on your chosen topic.
Participate in the online National Project.
Get your class to design and build a solar energy cooker as a Science Week project with materials such as aluminium foil and cardboard boxes. See ASTA Resource Book Astronomy: Science Without Limits p19.
Visit other schools and conduct joint experiments, allowing students to work in teams.
Work across primary and secondary schools, encouraging seniors to mentor junior students.
Hold an astronomy trivia contest. See ideas in the ASTA Resource Book Astronomy: Science Without Limits.
Build a Solar System. See http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/classroomplanetarium/

Whole school events

The initial idea will need similar planning to a classroom event but on a larger scale.

Having decided on the format of the event then you will need to gain senior staff and/or principal support in order to make the event manageable. Have a clear idea of how the event would work before you embark on discussions. Senior staff will be supportive but they need to know that the direction and reasons for the event are clear.

There are three main formats for a school science week event.

Each classroom teacher runs a classroom event and then a sharing of the most significant findings are held in a “special Science Week assembly” with perhaps invitations to parents/ local dignitaries and the media to applaud at the conclusion of the week. Providing you have whole school support this is the easiest to manage on a personal level. Staff will be more supportive if you can obtain some financial support to provide materials.

Whole school science activity fair. This type of event requires a large undercover space, which is free from other activities for the duration of Science Week. Select about a dozen different science activities and challenges and place around the room with appropriate materials and equipment. Think about the type of space you have and the amount of room students will have to work - this will guide your choice of activity.
You then need to draw up a timetable for classes to visit the room as a class and have ‘their turn’ at investigating the challenges provided. It is unlikely that every student will get through every activity in the allocated lesson time. A good follow up to this is to provide each teacher with a set of the challenges provided and give them the option of allowing students to do follow up work in their classroom. This type of organisation is fun for the students, favoured by teachers and provides a different format for class work but for the outcomes in terms of teaching and learning to be significant the class teachers need to provide the follow up opportunities.

The whole school challenge. For this type of event the “challenge” is issued to the school e.g. “Design a balloon rocket which will travel the longest distance in the shortest time.” Obviously some activities are more suited to this format than others. Important things to consider are the type of venue for the final event, the cost of the materials involved, student safety and the level of investigation, which you require for your teaching program.
A challenge needs to have any necessary limitations established prior to the beginning of the investigation e.g. are there limitations on balloon size, brand of tape, string medium etc? Classroom teachers will then need to give students class time to investigate the challenge. Again any written work needs to be clarified at the beginning but this might be left to the class teacher to decide. If it is a whole school challenge then the Kindergarten class might take on the activity but their written report would be very different to a Year 5 class.
A time frame needs to be established in order to set the final ‘Challenge Day’. This forms the celebration or the work involved. The most successful model from each classroom is then tested in a whole school meeting. It’s quite a good idea to invite an outside judge in for the final event—a local dignitary, the school principal, president of the school council or some such person. Students are most accepting of this and it gives the event an added importance.
Invite the parents in to see the occasion - they will really enjoy it.
Once the “winners” are chosen (these may be in Year levels or class groups depending on your schools situation) then you make the presentations together with appropriate participation and/or winner’s certificates.
This is again a media opportunity (so take lots of photos) for the school newsletter, local press or might provide and article for your state education publication, your state newsletter or your national journals.

Ideas

Integrate other activities around the school, such as environmental projects, book week, weather activities, community events.
Invite an astronomer to come to the school.
Visit the Australian National Telescope Facility (www.atnf.csiro.au)
Talk to your local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community about Indigenous Astronomy or visit www.atnf.csiro.au/research/AboriginalAstronomy/index.html
Hold a science dinner involving whole school and parents. Invite a scientist.
Go on field trips to observatories, planetariums or telescope facilities.
Hold competitions or a quiz night.
Run a lunchtime experiment.
Run a science Olympics, festival, roving playground science show or science fair (have a look at some suggestions on this flyer or go to http://www.scom.unsw.edu.au/bigear/resources/sfair.html)
Host a scientist’s picnic or a science camp.
Set up team challenges or host a debate on a hot science topic.

Parent and Local Community activities

Encourage parents to hold a family night under the stars.
Borrow a telescope, or simply observe the stars one night and have the students/family members draw up what they see.
Research the constellations and write up a report.
Talk to your local tertiary institution; get the Science Faculty members involved in your school community’s activities.

Wider Community events

This can be a school community event or an event run through a community venue such as the town library, local museum or community hall. The focus could be the same but the organisation is slightly different.

With the community event you need to establish the ground rules for the activity, much the same as you would for a whole school activity and invite participants to take part in the “grand final” at the chosen venue. In some instances the staff of these venues will work with you. Make sure that you have enough adult help as there are often hundreds of entries and they all require immediate attention. It pays to run a workshop with your judges so that they understand the limitations, which are imposed and the need for time keeping, measuring distance, marking of written work etc to be consistent.
Set up the final event space with some clear labels designating a pathway to proceed e.g. you might need a registration desk, arrows to the testing sight, a place where participation certificates are collected and some chairs for over-enthusiastic parents to be guided to.
Invite the local media in to view the enthusiastic scientists at work and make sure that you provide them with the details of the winners to accompany the publication of the event.
This is an ideal event to gain sponsorship for so you need to make provision for what ever your sponsor requires in terms of publicity on the day. This might be a banner or a display board in a prominent place or perhaps the logo and supporting information on the participation certificate.
A school community event is also a great idea and very successful if well organised. There are a variety of ways that this could be managed all building on the ideas already presented but you will need the support of your principal and perhaps your district coordinator if you are planning to involve other schools. An event such as this can also involve a certain amount of professional development for the staff involved.

Ideas - Model for School Community Science Event

The following is a description of one model only - there are endless opportunities to be creative.

Seek approval of the school principal and local school staff.
Inform the district coordinator of your intention to put forward the proposal to other schools within the district/cluster are invited to take part by sending one representative to an initial meeting.
At the initial meeting you outline your idea of how the event might run e.g. each teacher involved will design 5 science challenges - the information required to work the challenge will then be word processed onto challenge cards and duplicated as necessary.
The cards will have teachers’ notes and a list of necessary materials on the reverse side.
The number of activities provided will depend on the potential number of students who need to be catered for but is quite manageable for up to 600 providing you have the space to set up the experience.
As a group look at the activities make some decisions of their desirability based on cost of materials and student safety.
Sort the activities into obvious groupings e.g. perhaps your science curriculum or perhaps the available space might govern the decision.
With large numbers of students you will need to duplicate some of the activities. The day ideally divides into four possible sessions so each group of students will have access to four events or challenge-centres. Within the challenge centre they might only do two or three things each.
Choose the spaces that you intend to use for activities. If you have three groups of activities and a final extravaganza you will have enough opportunities for three classes of students to take part. If you have more students than that then just repeat the activities and add more workspaces. Grouping students can be managed by colour-carding the students and their managing teacher for the day e.g. All students with yellow cards go to Mrs. Smith, All students with red cards go to Mr Brown.
In order to establish groups it is good to start every student off together in a group situation and to explain the “rules” regarding behaviour, toilet location, lunch arrangements etc. You hand out the colour cards at this stage. You might also like to organise a grand event for the final session e.g. a science speaker, a science performer, or a performance of a science drama.
You will need to gather information from the participating schools on number of students taking part and then group them accordingly. This can be in class groups or in class size groups, which can be vertically mixed as well as from different schools.
Each teacher both local and visiting will then be given a group of students to be responsible for the day. They will supervise them in the activity centres, ensure that the activities are left tidy for the next group, arrange replacement materials and disposal of rubbish, move students on at the appropriate time and accompany students to class break venues.
For the final session of the day students reassemble in the main area and are entertained in some way. This is optional but a good way to finish the day.
Extras:
a) All teachers who take part should receive a copy of all the activities (activity card pack) with teachers’ notes. This allows for follow up experiences in the normal class time.
b) All students receive a “show bag” of materials to take away together with a small science challenge card and the necessary materials.

Note: This is an ideal event for sponsorship. Local business communities and companies with a scientific connection are often pleased to support events such as this. The sponsorship enables you to provide the appropriate materials for the event and supplements you science supplies within the school. It also allows for the provision of the activity pack for teachers and for the “show bag” for the students. The more students involved the more the local communities and businesses will want to be seen to be involved.