The University of Wollongong is running eight events across the Illawarra and South Coast this week as part of National Science Week, with organisers expecting thousands of locals to take part.
UOW’s Associate Professor Theresa Larkin has coordinated the program for four years. She said the events ranged from small in person sessions to a live ABC Illawarra broadcast with a potential audience of 300,000.
“Science needs everyone, it needs critique and it needs diverse opinion,” Larkin said.
“We really need to share our advances in science, our progresses and our challenges to anyone who is willing to listen.”
The program opened with an Indigenous science event which showcased the rich history sceicne being a longstanding realtionship between Country and culture.
“In the context of science knowledges that have been held for tens of thousands of years,” Larkin said.
Open days at UOW campuses in Nowra and Batemans Bay typically draw in approximately 500 members of the public Larking said, with most of them not not realising a campus existed in their area.
“We have people from all ages, kids to older people, pumping air into a mannequin, having an ultrasound of their muscles, taking organs in and out of a body, or holding a reptile,” she said.
Tuesday night’s program included the Allan Sefton Memorial Lecture on environmental science, running alongside a separate talk on bioengineering breakthroughs at the Innovation Campus.
Larkin said the range of events also gave the public insight into different scientific career paths.
“It’s not just about inspiring the younger generation, for people to see different career paths, but also to see how science is integrated with so many other disciplines,” she said.
The daily radio interviews on ABC Illawarra Drive are expected to cover this weeks topics from archaeology and human composting, to whale research and rare ear diseases.
National Science Week runs until Sunday, with full event listings available through UOW’s website.
