Students share science studies

More than 250 primary school students from Perth’s southern suburbs came together at Curtin University in June to share their scientific questions and engage in conversations about their science interests.

The annual Great Science Share for Schools is a worldwide campaign founded by the Science and Engineering Education Research and Innovation Hub at The University of Manchester and aims to inspire science inquiry and communication.

Curtin University launched the program in Australia this year, with Rostrata Primary School, Yale Primary School and West Leeming Primary School taking part.

The event involves students sharing scientific questions and investigations about a particular theme, which this year was ‘climate emergency’.

The students from the three local primary schools were among the 211,898 students from across the globe who participated in the event by sharing their questions with each other and special guests.

Rostrata Primary School Principal Lee Woodcock said the students learnt there are solutions to real world problems that they can see in everyday life and their actions can make a difference.

“I think our students felt empowered that as a collective group, they could make a difference to the world around them and even at this young age, the theme of ‘climate emergency’ is important to them,” he said.

“Knowing they were backed by 200,000 other students around the world, they felt they had a larger collective voice.

“One of our students actually commented that adults lose hope because they give up too easily, kids always have lots of ideas and we can inspire the adults.”

Mr Woodcock said the event provided a great collaborative opportunity to grow community partners.

“It also gave our students the opportunity for a ‘choice and voice’ for authentic issues in an authentic platform that were most important to them, and as it turns out, they had a lot to say and we are really proud of them,” he said.

“It’s an important step towards developing our students into real change makers into the future.”

The launch of the Great Science Share for Schools campaign in Australia was made possible through seed funding from the Western Australian State Government Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation.