Tuesday 2 August 2022

National Science Week 2022 is occurring from 13 to 21 August, and several Neighbourhood Houses have received grants from Inspiring Victoria to deliver fun, informative and interactive activities!

You can see a list of what these Neighbourhood Houses are delivering below. For details on each event, contact the Neighbourhood House directly (click on their name for contact information).

Neighbourhood Houses Victoria wishes to thank Inspiring Victoria, an initiative of The Royal Society of Victoria and the Federal Government, for this wonderful funding opportunity.

 

Mini Worlds and Creepy Crawlies

Kyneton Community House

An environmental ecologist will run an informative workshop allowing the children to explore small areas in the garden. The session will also include bug bingo, bug related story time, and art and craft activities. The workshop will also address climate change and amplify the message all things in the environment are equally important regardless of their size.

 

The Future is STEM with STEMician’s

Quantin Binnah Community Centre

STEMician will co-host a STEM workshop to help inspire interest and confidence in the world of STEM! The range of interactive and fun projects aim to help propel young children into STEM in an inclusive and safe environment. They will work with robots and write codes to instruct them, create CAD models and transform them into real objects using 3D printers, make effective use of digital technologies and build energy efficient and sustainable model houses. Working scientists, researchers, academics and industry experts will take the students through interactive projects and show what the future holds for them in the exciting world of STEM.

 

Enviro Kids

Creswick Neighbourhood Centre

The 'Green Earth Kids' workshop series will encourage local children to become more interested in our amazing planet and how humans can more effectively look after it. The series would cover, through a natural science and social studies approach, life on land and below water, responsible consumption of Earth's resources and learning how to become a more sustainable community. Participants will be critically engaged via explorative conversation, video clips, games and recycled craft activities.

 

Science in the Garden

Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre

Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre will collaborate with the Discovery Science and Technology Centre to provide a minibeasts in the garden experience. There will be opportunities for hands-on experiential learning for all ages, including a treasure hunt, learning about different cultures including insects in their diets and the opportunity to taste some insect food and building a Pollinator Hotel using household and found materials.

 

The Science of Soap

Jika Jika Community Centre

In this session, groups will get to make soap while learning about chemical reactions and processes such as exothermic reactions, saponification and emulsification. The session will be run by a soap making expert and science teacher who can talk through scientific processes involved as they work.

 

VR Exploration hits Sea Lake

Sea Lake Neighbourhood House

Sea Lake Neighbourhood House are hosting an unforgettable, high impact VR incursion day for local students, teachers, kindergarten, and interested community members. The ClassVR is a fun, hands-on and interactive platform that will provide Sea Lake members with the opportunity to experience cutting-edge technology. Throughout the day, the instructors will demonstrate various ways of utilising this technology in the classroom to raise student engagement and increase student knowledge retention; or recreationally in either non-immersive, semi-immersive and fully immersive situations.

 

Fun with Science

Mount Eliza Neighbourhood House

A local Beekeeper will facilitate this session about keeping bees at home. There will be an interactive beehive for the children to see bees at work and a child's sized beekeeper outfit for the children to try on. They can learn some delicious recipes that feature honey, and have the opportunity to sign up for a class to make beeswax wraps and a small candle.

 

Kyabram STEM in community

Kyabram Community and Learning Centre

This event will include numerous partners including Aldara Yenara (Aboriginal Co-op), Kyabram Fauna Park and Cool Kids First Aid. Perfect for the whole community, participants can learn sciences about animals and people. They’ll be working with Aboriginal children and teach through storytelling, as many Aboriginal cultures do so well.

 

Robotics and Programming with One Day Studios

Simpson and District Community Centre 

One Day Studios will run an Introduction to Programming and Robotics Session. The session involves some Turing Tumblers (mechanical computers), robotic arm game and participants can bring their own iPad for a Minecraft hour of code. The workshop will expose younger kids to the change in thinking required to breakdown tasks into sequences which forms the basis of all coding. 

 

Science Expo

Chelsea Heights Community Centre

This Science Expo will introduce the community to the exciting world of science in a fun and interactive way. Starting with the show "Get Scientwisted!", the public will be then invited to participate in different hands-on activities to nurture curious thinking in everyday life. Local organisations will speak about their involvement to protect our local area between land and ocean and Community Garden volunteers will explain how the garden is a fully local ecosystem and give some gardening tips to the public.

 

Under the stars in Charlton

Charlton Neighbourhood House

A representative for the Astronomy Society of Victoria will visit with a large telescope to help the community view the night skies. All those attending will have the opportunity to view stars and planets from this small rural community that they would otherwise never have the chance to do. 

 

Science of Soil

Healesville Living and Learning Centre

The children’s session will explore soil properties and what lives in soil, experimenting with water saturation, pH, and the biological community of soil. The adult session will explore worm farming and composting practices. They will explore the components of soil mixing, the biological community of soil, and how to maintain good decomposition. People can learn how to establish a worm farm and compost heap, with ongoing space for composting the scraps from the "Tuckerbag" food security program, run by Oonah Health and Community Services Aboriginal Corporation.

 

Plastic is not Fantastic

Riddells Creek Neighbourhood House

This after-school session is a partnership with the local primary school and Cool Changes Climate Change Action Plan. It will explore the chemistry behind how plastics are made, and encourage interest in technologies and innovations to reuse plastic and develop plastic that degrades more efficiently. A scientist will explore plastic polymers, the breakdown of certain types of plastic for re-use and how to make alternative plastics from products such as casein.

 

Mad Food Science Experiments

Balla Balla Community Centre

The Mad Food Science Experience will be delivered by Karen Imgrumd, a certified instructor for The Root Cause. This will be followed by a healthy lunch and discussion of the experiments and small changes we can make as a result of the experiments performed. The Mad Food Science Incursion is a fun, interactive educational workshop that uses quirky experiments to get children to understand key health messages. Participants will make a green smoothie, conduct a sugar experiment showing amount of sugar in popular drinks and how gut bacteria feed on different sugars in the gut, and work with a Worm Farm.

 

Soil: Where Life Begins

Reynard Street Neighbourhood House

The community can learn about improving soil health for delicious organic food and its essential role to mitigate climate change. The activities will include setting up in-ground worm farms, a hands-on composting workshop to learn about different methods of composting, what lives in the compost and how to start composting at home or in the community. Their film and soup night will screen a documentary about soil and host a conversation. These events will run in collaboration with a local Climate Action Community Group, Moreland Community Gardening, Climate Action Moreland and Growing Farmers.

 

Walking Stony Creek Yarraville

Yarraville Community Centre

Friends of Stony Creek and the Ranger from Maribyrnong City Council will host a walk along Stony Creek to the Mangroves after an educational session at the Centre. Learn about the role of Stony Creek as habitat for the birds, frogs, fish, macroinvertebrates and the Indigenous cultural importance of Stony Creek. Identify the vegetation, birds, frogs, fish, and macroinvertebrates of Stony Creek and the ecological role they play. Explore impacts of threats such as litter and pollutants, stormwater drainage, climate change, habitat loss, poor water quality, and erosion on the plants and animals living in and around Stony Creek.

 

Me & My Nature

Oakgrove Community Centre

This session will help migrant families (particularly women and children) create art using natural resources. There will be an information session on protecting the environment, caring for nature, sustainable resources and appreciating agriculture & farming. Each family will receive hard copies of information to take home.

 

Intro to STEM

Waverley Community Learning Centre

Children will have an opportunity to explore architecture, engineering and technology concepts, and learn the fundamentals of coding and programming with Lego Mindstorms EV3. There will be a Motorised Technic workshop, perfect for children ages 5 to 8. Children ages 9 to 12 will love the Advanced Robotics workshop.