National Science Week - Deep Blue

National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. It provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of scientists, STEM professionals, innovators, designers and entrepreneurs to the world of science.

This year’s celebrations centre around our planet’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of its surface and help control its weather systems and the make-up of the atmosphere. ‘Deep Blue: innovation for the future of our oceans’ is the school theme for National Science Week in 2020. The ocean theme also enables teachers and students to discover and investigate Australia’s world-renowned contributions to marine science, marine based industries, marine technologies and marine innovations.

In April 2019, the Australian Government established the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) in Launceston, Tasmania. The CRC will use ‘big picture thinking’ to solve problems and use science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to design new solutions to forge future paths in the areas of offshore engineering and technology, aquaculture and marine ecology, and marine renewable energy. According to the CSIRO, “The concept of a ‘blue economy’ is one that balances sustainable economic benefit from the world’s oceans and coastlines with the need to protect their long-term health”. Given Australia’s geopolitical position, the blue economy is fundamental to our and our neighbours’, ongoing economic, environmental and social prosperity. The blue economy is generally taken to consider all aspects of the marine, maritime and coastal regions that have a direct or indirect impact on the economy.

This year we are using the Resource Book of Ideas for National Science Week, which offers our teachers and students the opportunity to explore these concepts in addition to the cultural, commercial, environmental and recreational aspects of our oceans.

Mrs Sue Zweck, Head of Learning K-5