We have been out and about celebrating National Science Week and having lots of fun with science in Sydney and beyond. We had an absolutely jam-packed National Science Week. – visiting many schools, and presenting at numerous events around the city, including Science in the City at the Australian Museum....

Remember Professor Julius Sumner-Miller, the lecturer who first brought simple engaging science experiments into people’s homes via TV? Wow, did he start something! Prof. Sumner-Miller’s ideas of demonstrating science using simple materials have been taken up by primary and science teachers throughout Australia; in fact you would struggle to get...

Who said that all reality television is complete rubbish? Sunday night’s Masterchef challenge contained some serious lessons about the importance of the scientific method. The challenge was to invent a recipe, and write it so that somebody following it to the letter could reproduce it perfectly.

I get irritated when I go shopping. More and more scientific jargon appears to be making its way onto the labels of products, and in many cases it is misused and doesn’t make sense. I’m a scientist, I use jargon all the time and I don’t have any problem with...

With the National Broadband Network (NBN) beginning to be rolled out across Australia, at an estimated cost of $35.9 billion, the general public is quite rightly wondering what they will get for their buck. Well, having just attended the Digital Outreach conference this week I can say from the education...

I am not ashamed to admit this, but for the last 12 years of my life, I have wanted nothing more than to be able to toss some Floo powder in a fireplace and walk through that beautiful green flame to the land of Harry Potter. With the last installment...

As most readers are aware, working with gifted children offers its own challenges when it comes to science. Our approach to any child, gifted or not, is to work with what they can do rather than concentrate on their particular age. Having supplementary material on hand is the best insurance...

There is a large population of Terrapin Turtles living in the marshes near JFK Airport, and every year they migrate to nearby sandy areas in Jamaica Bay to lay their eggs – and there just happens to be a runway in the way. A runway at a very, very busy...

As part of our Renewable Energy workshop today, I was asked why we can’t use the steam produced by the evaporation of liquid nitrogen to power a turbine and generate electricity. The short answer is economics –the amount of energy that would be produced by using liquid nitrogen to power...

A bet is a bet! We were playing around with Facebook and Karin suggested that if we got 50 “likes” by the end of the business day the Sydney staff could slime me. Of course I couldn’t resist the challenge :)

Beginning in 2007, NSW rolled out millions of dollars of video conferencing hardware to NSW public schools through the Interactive Classroom Project. So how can rural and remote schools gain access? Read on...

Always wanted to participate in the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)? How about donating some of your computing power at your school, office or home to the SETI project! Find out more on how your humble computer could help contribute...

What is your local school doing for this year's theme? Here are some easy ideas that can be run in class!