The Australian Museum Science Festival in Bathurst

Students were able to experience a broad range of sciences including chemistry, biology, astronomy, forensics and physics, which spanned over Tuesday the 12th and Wednesday the 13th of November.

The Liquid Nitrogen show demonstrated the amazing effects of the substance such as inflating and deflating balloons without breath or a pump, and blasting lids off Milo containers, sending them shooting through the air.

Anthony’s Native Wildlife show is always a hit amongst the masses with students interacting with animals like Frank the Tawny Frogmouth, Gumnuts the Ring-Tailed Possum, Prickles the Bearded Dragon and Precious the Diamond Python. 

Shane from UNSW with his Inflatable Planetarium Starlab allowed visitors to crawl into the structure and gaze at the southern night sky whilst learning facts about the constellations.

Our CSI World workshop conducted by myself and Ash gave students an insight and hands on experience into the world of forensic science. After getting suited and booted, students stepped into a “Crime Scene” and dusted for fingerprints, collected hair and fibre samples, tested for blood and gathered footprints to try and discover the identity of the criminal offender.

ANSTO’s Fact or Fiction show combined sci-fi and pop-culture with cutting edge science and technology. The big screen show relied on audience participation and had the excited echoes of students’ voices booming throughout the halls.

Students were also able to make slime and discover hidden messages with Macquarie University’s Interactive Science as well as talk to Australia’s top science organisations and institutions about scientific queries and careers at the EXPO.

And what is a science festival without our life-sized Muttaburrasaurus puppet, Winny?! The 3-year-old dinosaur got to greet the students and get a taste of Bathurst life.

All in all the Festival was a successful and exciting trip with almost 1000 students participating. We also had around 160 people attend our evening event entitled Panoramic Science which gave the general public a snapshot of the Science Festival.

And to top it off, we were also on WIN News, ABC central west radio and in the local newspapers!

The Science Communication team looks forward to our next country road trip, bringing more of our scientific experiments, workshops and adventures to country communities.