After locating the campus coffee shop yesterday, getting going on day two was a lot easier!

We began with a visit to the ANU Engineering Labs, where we heard from Dr Henry Gardner on computer sciences and how to best incorporate ICT in the curriculum. Henry also provided us with useful websites including interactive games and competitions that introduce students to coding. Following this, we had a taste of Engineers Without Borders through an experiment designing water filtration systems for developing communities. This session, run by Jeremy Smith was a great activity that we are excited to try out in the classroom.

The day started to heat up with a climate change lecture update from Professor Janette Lindesay (Department Director, Fenner School of Environment and Society). Her talk really highlighted the importance of education regarding the current environmental changes and extreme weather events, and how this will impact globally in years to come. Janette reiterated that while it is important to inform students of the magnitude of the problem, we shouldn’t scare them into paralysis. Instead, she provided strategies that we can use to combat the climate change trend.

In a change of pace and scenery, we headed to the CSIRO Discovery Centre, Black Mountain. Here we heard from Associate Professor Janet Smith regarding the Australian Maths and Science Partnership Program (AMSPP), a national mentoring program for science and mathematics teachers. There was excitement amongst the group for the prospect of applying for the program in the future. Professor Steve Swain also spoke about the CSIRO Food Futures Flagship program, before we had the chance to see and experiment with the various lab based technologies housed at Black Mountain. These workshops were engaging and it was exciting to don the CSIRO coats and glasses and get stuck into work in the lab.

The night wrapped up with the long anticipated live video conference from Dr Rolf Landua from the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Along with students from the National Youth Science Forum, we had the opportunity to ask some of the burning questions about “life, the universe and everything after the Higgs Boson”. Dr Landua was a captivating speaker who had the over 450 person crowd intrigued by what he had to say.

Another busy day awaits tomorrow, and remember to check out the Twitter and Facebook. We would like to again thank the ASTA/Step Up team for their continued encouragement and support.

Until next time,

Gabby, Gemma, and Mel