Audio Transcript

Published: April 5, 2018
APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2018, April 5). Ep.48 Sydney Science Festival [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education.
https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/sydney-science-festival/

Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education.

[00:00:06]
Ellie Downing: If you’ve got a lot of things going on, it means that people can leverage from one another in terms of exposure, in terms of talent.

[00:00:13]
Ellie Downing: What Catherine was just speaking about, if you really want to be involved but you don’t know how to run an event or that terrifies you, with this platform it means that you can be involved and the onus of running an event doesn’t have to be on you. You can just be a science superstar.

[00:00:27]
Ben Newsome: And become a science superstar you certainly can do that at the Sydney Science Festival. There are over 180 individual events and over 60 programme partners. This is a serious deal and you definitely can get involved.

[00:00:39]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:54]
Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Big week this week because we’re hearing about the Sydney Science Festival. This is a massively growing event which since 2015 just keeps on getting bigger and bigger and better. I tell you what, you’ve got some homework if you’re in the Sydney region. Seriously, write this down: April 13. It’s not far away. Jump on sydneyscience.com.au/2018 because the submissions to be involved in the Sydney Science Festival are about to close.

[00:01:24]
Ben Newsome: But before you go ahead and press that submit button, today we get to hear from the two producers of the entire thing. First up is Catherine Polcz, who’s the programme producer from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, and we’ve got Ellie Downing as well, who’s the manager for science engagement and events at the Australian Museum. Seriously, this is a very fun event and today you get to hear all about it.

[00:01:42]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:01:44]
Catherine Polcz: Hello! Thanks for having us.

[00:01:46]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, thank you.

[00:01:47]
Ben Newsome: I’m really stoked to be able to have a chat with you both because, hey, you’ve got this Sydney Science Festival coming up and it’s a lot of fun. Full disclosure, I’ve been involved before, but it is good fun and well worth people’s time. Some people might have run into you too and run into the festival. Tell us a bit about it. Ellie, I’m going to put you on the spot. What do you do, why do you do it, and what’s all this festival about?

[00:02:18]
Ellie Downing: Mate, those are three really big questions! I’m manager of science engagement and events over at the Australian Museum. We work with the education team here at the museum and do lots of fun activities around natural science and culture.

[00:02:40]
Ellie Downing: In terms of the Sydney Science Festival, we have the pleasure of being co-producers of the event with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. I’m the coordinator of the museum’s role for that, and then we also manage our own events that we run on-site. I get to work with lots of excellent people outside of the industry. It’s one of those things where you run around a lot behind the scenes but don’t get to see a lot. You’re always there smiling and a little bit sweaty from the manic nature that is running events.

[00:03:10]
Ben Newsome: Is that your world as well, Catherine?

[00:03:13]
Catherine Polcz: Yes, similar to Ellie, I’m the applied science programme producer at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. We do all kinds of science programming about technology and astronomy. We also work at the Sydney Observatory site, so astronomy is a big thing for us. I also work at the Powerhouse Museum where we have exhibitions on health and medicine. Technology and connecting STEM to people’s daily lives is our museum’s focus.

[00:03:46]
Catherine Polcz: The Sydney Science Festival has been around since 2015, so it’s a fairly new initiative for Sydney. It happens every August during National Science Week. The 2018 dates are from August 7 through 19. Right now the EOI website is up, so I’m just going to spruik it: if you’re interested in doing an event, look at sydneyscience.com.au. The festival really is a way to showcase the amazing science talent in Sydney. We do a programme of talks, exhibitions, events, tours, parties—all kinds of events across all disciplines of science.

[00:04:26]
Catherine Polcz: We work with our event presenters to put on events. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and the Australian Museum are the co-producers, but we work with over 60 other organisations who run their own events. Last year was a huge year; we had over 70,000 people come to the festival and I think over 13,000 students and learners. Is that right, Ellie?

[00:04:48]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, the Australian Museum was pretty big. We had over 7,000 kids on-site at the museum, which was pretty hectic. We ended up having to take over Sydney Grammar next door and the PCYC down the road and cram children into every nook and cranny that we could find to get them to engage with science. It’s really fun.

[00:05:07]
Catherine Polcz: We also crammed a lot of scientists into the festival. We worked with over 585 scientists and researchers on all the programmes last year too. That’s a bit of an overview of what we do with the festival. It’s becoming a massive thing.

[00:05:22]
Ben Newsome: Just a quiet afternoon walk in the park to be able to put this all together, no big deal! It just does itself, right? That’s the thing; as one of the presenters at one of these things, we only get to see a very minor sliver of the programme. We’re presenting out to audiences, and we see you running around frantically.

[00:05:50]
Ben Newsome: We know full well what it’s like; you’ve only got that one moment really to be able to make it all happen. There’s all these months of preparation and then it all happens. Generally, out of interest, when does the planning for such a festival as this start? You’ve got 180 individual events; that’s not messing around. That’s a proper festival. When does that planning start, Catherine?

[00:06:14]
Catherine Polcz: It’s an all-year gig for us. We start planning the EOIs as early as December and November. This year it opened in March. Then there’s a lot of making contact with all of our partners and making sure they’re ready to submit an event, getting the festival programme together over a long time, and looking after the website and the design for the festival—a lot of these operational tasks. There’s a lot of organisation in the lead-up, and then it’s really exciting once the website is launched and you’re getting more media and publicity for the events and the festival.

[00:07:01]
Catherine Polcz: Then the festival is happening, and we’re running around going to as many events as we can. It doesn’t end there for us; then it’s a lot of evaluation, reporting, debriefing, and reassessing what kind of opportunities we can look for in the next year’s festival. So it’s kind of all year. Would you add anything to that, Ellie?

[00:07:26]
Ellie Downing: I’m going to be controversial and say that it goes beyond a year. Even while you’re running an event, you’ve already been thinking about next year’s event. The Sydney Science Festival, one of the incredible things about it is that it does really bring all of the science community of Sydney together. We leverage the platform of National Science Week and the relationships that Inspiring Australia has as a founding partner of the festival.

[00:07:54]
Ellie Downing: We just use it to find all these connections and build this network of science communicators, educators, researchers, enthusiasts, novices, and curious-minded people. We just get them all together. Even while you’re running events, what you’re doing is finding ways to make it even better for everyone next year. One of the really beautiful things about the festival is that it’s not solely focused on visitor experience; it’s really for the people who are putting on events as well. It’s really community-minded and community-focused.

[00:08:26]
Ellie Downing: We’ve got several communities involved. It’s people who attend the event, your peers who are running events, and the higher-ups. Hopefully, we can get more pick-up from a corporate level so that it can rise in prestige and we’re able to help support people far better in the future. Australia has incredible research and incredible science educators who can compete internationally, but we’re just trying to get that recognition on our home ground. This is one of the ways that is proven to be really successful. As Catherine was saying, it just keeps growing in size, notoriety, and the people who are involved. It’s really fun.

[00:09:05]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I mean, you’ve got the big international speakers and some serious heavy-hitter partners, but at the same point, I love the fact that you mentioned it’s also about people who aren’t formally a PhD or involved in science education per se. Volunteers can get involved. What are some of the events that someone off the street can get involved with and literally just help out to be able to make such a festival happen?

[00:09:31]
Ellie Downing: There are so many things people can do. As I said, there’s really big community involvement. People give so much of their time and so much in-kind to make this event happen. There’s a lot of work that Catherine and I do at both the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and the Australian Museum, but there’s also a lot of work that happens within the community that I’m sure we don’t see in terms of people sharing. Number one, if you can talk about it, we’d love you to gossip about us and share all the great feelings about the Sydney Science Festival.

[00:10:05]
Ellie Downing: In terms of volunteering, because it’s often run by people in addition to their usual jobs, you can help people with ticketing or running things on the night. You might be running around doing fun things like evaluations. Here at the Australian Museum, we get people to escort school groups all day because school students are worse than headless chickens; they have conscious brains, so they go hiding as well! You get to shadow those guys and see all of the incredible stuff that happens here.

[00:10:36]
Ellie Downing: At other events, you might get taught how to run an interaction, so you can actually be running science engagement with people. If it’s something like a scientist speed dating evening, you might be helping facilitate conversations. If it’s a podcast evening, you might be participating in helping people get conversations started. If it’s a trivia night, you might just be answering questions. The way that you engage is really varied. One of the great things is that there’s no one way prescribed to engage with science, and this festival really showcases that.

[00:11:11]
Ben Newsome: Well, actually I want to drill down on one of those things just for the sake that some people might not have heard of it before. I’ve seen it happen, but it’s quite funny just hearing the title: “Scientist Speed Dating”. Let’s throw it to Catherine. Meet a scientist! What do you get, five minutes to hear their thing? What happens in a speed dating scientist event?

[00:11:31]
Catherine Polcz: That’s a programme we’ve run a few years now where we have a panel of scientists. People who work for government, for CSIRO, they might work for different universities. I think we’ve had involvement from Australian Museum scientists before—kind of a broad spectrum of scientists. It’s dating that’s not romantic! You sit down with each one for the love of science and just have these really short but inspired conversations with scientists.

[00:12:10]
Catherine Polcz: We’ve done it at different launch events, like big parties, or we’ve had standalone speed meets. It’s just been really amazing when you give people that permission to sit down and talk to each other, how open everyone is. For the scientists, it’s really exciting because they get to see that eager interest in their work, which they might not have access to every day. The challenge of communicating their work to really diverse audiences is a bit of a science communication marathon boot camp.

[00:12:44]
Catherine Polcz: Then for the audiences, some people have scientists in their life or they know scientists, but for many people, it’s kind of this abstract role. Getting that one-on-one contact with experts can be really inspiring and motivating. It just gives people a little more information about the work scientists are doing in the community and for society. The speed meets are a popular event.

[00:13:17]
Catherine Polcz: Just a little more about getting involved in the festival and what to expect next year. We are in our expression of interest submission, so everyone is submitting their ideas for events. These come from big organisations like the City of Sydney and the Royal Botanic Garden. We also work with smaller organisations, and individuals can also submit events. If you have an idea for an event, please go to the website and let us know.

[00:13:46]
Catherine Polcz: There’s also an opportunity to get involved with bigger events. If you’re a scientist and you’d like to participate in a speed meet, or you have an activation idea for a larger family event, you can submit those ideas too. Our role is to connect you with people and events that you might be able to collaborate with. There are really a lot of different ways to get involved. If you wanted to see the spectrum of events that we do, you can view last year’s website by going to sydneyscience.com.au/2017 to see more of what we’re about and what we’ve done in the past.

[00:14:26]
Ben Newsome: That’s it. And go to /2018 if you want to submit a new event, which makes a lot of sense.

[00:14:31]
Catherine Polcz: Yes. We’ll link the website somewhere, right?

[00:14:34]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, absolutely. We’ll put it in the show notes. I mean, why not. And you can’t do 2019.

[00:14:41]
Catherine Polcz: Stay tuned for 2019!

[00:14:44]
Ben Newsome: Well, absolutely. I mean, this particular programme, I’m not hearing it’s going to go away. It’s one of those things that’s got momentum now. Prior to 2015, there were plenty of things happening around National Science Week throughout Sydney and surrounds, without a doubt. The whole point of this was to stitch it all together, right?

[00:15:06]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, I think everything’s been happening for a really long time, but it’s kind of been fractured. There’s a real strength—credit to Inspiring Australia who really encouraged and supported the unionisation of this all. If you’ve got a lot of things going on, it means that people can leverage from one another in terms of exposure and talent. What Catherine was just speaking about, if you really want to be involved but you don’t know how to run an event or that terrifies you, with this platform it means that you can be involved and the onus of running an event doesn’t have to be on you. You can just be a science superstar.

[00:15:44]
Ellie Downing: Alternatively, if you want to run events and facilitate that engagement but you don’t feel confident enough to present, we can hook you up with people. That is packaged together in a really easy-to-digest information packet for media, making it easier for us to pick up stories and get word out there to new audiences. It helps break the stigma that can often be attached to science as being elitist or not for everyone. People are afraid to get involved because they’re not very confident or there’s a fear they might get embarrassed. This is a way we can start breaking that down. It’s more about having a conversation about science and getting people comfortable with the idea.

[00:16:29]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Mind you, the media does get behind you on this. I can’t remember how many times you got mentioned last year. You’d have that stat somewhere in one of your reports, without a doubt.

[00:16:40]
Catherine Polcz: I have those numbers. I’ve got it tattooed on my forearm!

[00:16:45]
Ben Newsome: Proper commitment we’re asking for, nonetheless.

[00:16:49]
Catherine Polcz: That’s exactly what it is. By submitting an event in the festival, you benefit from being part of this cohesive marketing campaign. If you’re a smaller event, you have a professional website that you’re part of. There’s a lot we can offer you in terms of media and publicity and just amplifying the impact of your event through the festival website and programme.

[00:17:23]
Ellie Downing: We’ve also found that one of the informal things that we suspected was happening, but were yet to get formal feedback on, is that because everyone’s networked and all of a sudden you’re more aware of what’s going on, you can bounce ideas off everyone. The overall quality of science education and communication within the Sydney region is increasing because we’re all working together and we can see what’s out there.

[00:17:49]
Ellie Downing: We can see where the gaps are all of a sudden because rather than looking at a square millimetre of the map, you get the whole region. We can see what the topics are, what the discussions are, and how the conversation is evolving. If there are geographical areas that might not have a lot of engagement happening, then we can work out how we can make it a city-wide event and support people in those areas. The real benefit is that there’s a lot of informal professional development that happens for the people involved as well. It’s all about that peer-to-peer learning for us and the support of that community, as well as running really fun events.

[00:18:27]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. It becomes one giant conference plus the public’s involved, which is just wicked.

[00:18:34]
Ellie Downing: All the best bits!

[00:18:35]
Ben Newsome: It is the best bit, all the best bits. And like any good festival, it doesn’t stop after the actual formal lessons either, I can tell you that. It makes me wonder, where do you think this will go? There’s some massive festivals around the world—I can think of the Edinburgh Science Festival, I can think of the Abu Dhabi one as well. Where could you see the Sydney Science Festival starting to be placed?

[00:18:57]
Ellie Downing: I think we’re definitely up there in terms of quality and we’re able to compete on an international scale. The thing that’s really nice about this is that even though we’re that high quality, the focus is on local. We do get international speakers and we’re able to attract huge names, but we have an approachability to it because it has a huge percentage of local contributors.

[00:19:29]
Ellie Downing: You get these science superstars that are incredibly inspiring. Then you also get to see people who are on the same stage and are just as high calibre, but you can also run into them down at the pub, see them at your school, or run into them on the weekends at the local supermarket. It’s this next-level sense of accessibility because it’s familiar. It’s people in your own town and it just is the best, pretty much.

[00:20:05]
Catherine Polcz: Yeah, I think the focus on Sydney is really what the festival is all about, but bringing international talent to Sydney is a huge part of that in addition to showcasing Sydney talent. For us, we’re always looking to identify areas that don’t have the same level of science engagement. There’s a ton of events that we have in the inner Sydney and the inner suburbs, but we see there’s a lot of potential to grow it more in Western Sydney and North Sydney.

[00:20:37]
Catherine Polcz: Our goal would be just to have opportunities for everyone to engage with the festival in their local hangouts and hubs. Taking over the world, I guess, will be a future goal for the festival!

[00:20:53]
Ben Newsome: The Southern Hemisphere first, and then we’ll take on everyone.

[00:20:59]
Catherine Polcz: It’s just engaging with new audiences, making sure we have good cultural representation, Indigenous science, and making sure that we’re in a position to showcase some of those hidden science stories that don’t have the same outreach maybe.

[00:21:18]
Ben Newsome: I love the hidden science stories. I really like the idea that every now and then you’ll see something on Twitter or something coming through Science Alert or whatever and you go, “Really? That’s real? That’s a thing?” And that’s the best part about these festivals; you see some standard shtick with liquid nitrogen and whatnot, which is perfectly fine, but having those real wow moments—they don’t have to be about the big and the wow and the explosive stuff. Sometimes it can be about the very small and unnoticed, but when you actually look at it deeply, you go, “Wow, that’s really a thing.” And that’s the beauty about it, which is great.

[00:21:55]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, definitely. It’s that type of stuff that’s more relatable as well. Liquid nitrogen is super-duper cool, but they never let you get your hands on it unless you’ve got the proper training. Whereas a lot of the smaller stuff with natural sciences and with astronomy and things like that, you can do it. You can go out and you can have a look and you can understand what’s going on.

[00:22:16]
Ben Newsome: And absolutely. In fact, I want to put a bit of a shout-out to Jackie Randles. I think it was back in episode five I had a chat with her with what Inspiring Australia actually does in helping, not only just with the festival side of things, but also on citizen science because you don’t have to do science in the window of August or whatever window it is that you happen to be in your local area where they say, “This is National Science Week.”

[00:22:31]
Ben Newsome: Funnily enough, science is a 365-day affair. So you can definitely type in “citizen science” into your favourite search engine and you’ll find stuff, I guarantee it. If that fits your fancy, which is really cool. Actually, just out of interest, if you had to put someone under your wing and say, “Hey, let’s see if we can get your city, your region, your state, whatever it is, to start the first steps towards creating a genuine festival that engages the public,” what were the sort of things that you might suggest that might get them on their way?

[00:23:17]
Catherine Polcz: I think having a network and relationship with the scientists in your community or the science organisations would be really essential and crucial. From the museum perspective, we benefit from being parts of these big well-oiled machines where we have our COMMS department already, we have the design department, we have web developers, so we benefit from being able to do a lot of that work in-house.

[00:23:45]
Catherine Polcz: Maybe bringing together a team with diverse skills, knowing who your audience is and then start small in the scale that you can work on and then build that every year. If you’re in Australia, there’s potential to get funding from Inspiring Australia for different science events. What would you add, Ellie?

[00:24:12]
Ellie Downing: I think you hit the nail on the head when you’re talking about the scalability of it all. With running events, it can be really easy to go bigger than Ben-Hur because there are so many great ways that you can engage people. When you do good engagement, it’s like a drug. You just want to do it again because it’s so amazing to watch.

[00:24:36]
Ellie Downing: When you’ve been able to have the privilege of facilitating somebody getting it, or somebody who traditionally hasn’t been engaged with science suddenly feeling really good about themselves in the context of science learning—it’s amazing. With this type of stuff, you’ve really got to focus on quality. Make sure that it’s something that you can manage. It’s far better to do a small thing really well than to go bigger and disappoint yourself in terms of the level of engagement and the quality.

[00:25:06]
Ellie Downing: Also, the focus on networking. Have a look and see what’s out there. You mentioned citizen science before, and I’ll put on a cheeky other hat: I’m on the Australian Citizen Science Association Management Committee. There are lots of associations that exist that try to actively network people together. For citizen science, we exist just to introduce projects to each other and find ways to better support, and it’s the same for science communication. Find those networks, hook in, see what’s out there, and see if there’s a way you can band a few people together.

[00:25:46]
Ellie Downing: Create that diverse skill set. You might be really good at COMMS, somebody else might have a mate who’s a designer, somebody else might know how to run events, and someone else might know how to code the website. Just think about it as little nuggets that you can achieve. It might not be something that you get done this year, but you’ve built it in and it’s something you’re going to do next year. That scalability of it all, I think, is really good.

[00:26:13]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely and…

[00:26:14]
Ellie Downing: Oh, and evaluate!

[00:26:15]
Catherine Polcz: Evaluate! Oh my gosh. Almost missed that one.

[00:26:18]
Ben Newsome: Well, evaluation is key because it’s not just about, “Hey, here’s my report because I did my homework now.” It’s more about, did you do what you said you were going to do from a science communication point of view all the way through to, did the people who spent their funds get value for money? It’s a big deal.

[00:26:37]
Ellie Downing: It’s also that thing of, you can talk about how great you are until the sun goes down, but to have that proof of, “It’s not just us. Here’s what other people have said.” And it’s also a way to capture stuff that is happening but isn’t happening on the surface. You can track all of these attitudinal changes and you can track that people feel better about science and you can show the huge impact that you’re having.

[00:26:57]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, people might have learned something really cool about butterflies or spiders or the universe and the existential crisis that comes with understanding the universe. But also all of a sudden they might have learned a new word and so they’re actually becoming more literate in and they’re able to have conversations about science and that’s got a huge roll-on effect. It’s showing the impact of your event beyond your event run times.

[00:27:32]
Ellie Downing: And then with that, you build up momentum and you build the case to say, “Hey, this needs to happen regularly.” Or, “If you get involved and if you help me out in running these things, these are the benefits that you get.” And it proves the value of this, which I think is something we’re getting better at as a community, but it’s still a really big fight that we have to have all the time—proving the value of this and proving that it’s not only about communicating research. There’s huge societal benefits as well and it’s really, really important to do.

[00:28:03]
Ben Newsome: That’s it. And it’s not just about the numbers of people on seats.

[00:28:07]
Ellie Downing: Oh yeah. What do they go home with? A grumpy on a seat, we don’t want them.

[00:28:13]
Ben Newsome: We have 70,000 really annoyed people now. Yeah, you don’t want that.

[00:28:20]
Catherine Polcz: That’s great though, right?

[00:28:22]
Ben Newsome: But I mean, I know that that doesn’t happen at the Sydney Science Festival. I’ve been able to attend a number of those events and it really is a vibrant community that is clearly flourishing. Perhaps something that can be helpful too if you’re thinking about putting your events together is think just the simple logistics. Where are the buses going to go? How far do the schools have to walk? What’s the venue like? What’s the lighting like? Oh, by the way, the fire alarms. All that stuff matters to be able to run a successful event as well. So it’s not a short undertaking, hence you saying that it takes over a year to plan.

[00:29:03]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, there’s lots of fun event logistics. I think one of the things we’re doing this year is trying to create that checklist for people who haven’t run events before. So, how do you do queue management? Have you thought about if it’s a split-level thing, how does flow work through it? Just really basic stuff which Catherine and I, through working at the major institutions that run big events, know as second nature. One of the things we discovered last year was that a lot of the skill sets and knowledge that we take for granted are really useful to other people. So we’re actively trying to pour our heads onto paper so that we can share this with everyone.

[00:29:45]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. I know that especially taking half an hour out of your time when the submission dates aren’t that far away. We’re not kidding, if you want to get involved in this you need to be putting in your stuff now. So what is the critical date when the gate shut?

[00:30:03]
Catherine Polcz: April 13, so next Friday.

[00:30:08]
Ben Newsome: Oh, like now, now. All right, so hopefully you’ve gotten out there. We’re putting out this very fast so you get a chance to be able to hear this and submit. And it doesn’t have to be like this massive bigger-than-Ben-Hur thing. Just think, what could a community do in the room that you might be able to access, in what time frame and blah, blah, blah, all that type of stuff. Keep it simple, but keep it deep and meaningful. D&M, if you can do that in your space. So, thank you very much, and I’m going to leave you back to your planning because no doubt your phones are probably going to start ringing for other stuff really soon.

[00:30:46]
Catherine Polcz: Thanks so much. Great to have this chat and yeah, we’d love to hear from anyone who has questions.

[00:30:53]
Ellie Downing: Yeah, come talk to us!

[00:30:56]
Announcer: We hope you’ve been enjoying the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We love making science make sense. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop in your school? If you’re outside of Australia, you can connect with us via a virtual excursion. See our website for more.

[00:31:12]
Ben Newsome: And there we go, we just heard from Catherine Polcz and Ellie Downing who are the programme producers for the Sydney Science Festival. Seriously, I know I’m a little bit biased because, hey, I’m in Sydney too, but it’s well worth your time if you happen to be in Sydney during August this year. Come on down, really, there’s so many events, 180 of them. It’s well worth your time to go check stuff out, everything from science in the pub through the science in town hall, all sorts of science shows and meet a scientist and all that stuff. It’s great to do, it really is.

[00:31:42]
Ben Newsome: And if you want to get involved, I wasn’t kidding, jump on sydneyscience.com.au/2018 and press the submit button before April 13 with your own event. It would be well worth your time. During that chat with Ellie and Catherine, we talked a little bit about citizen science. It’s the idea that yes, you can be doing science even if you’re not in a university or research lab somewhere. You totally can be doing it anywhere around the place. So, a few episodes ago, way back in episode five of this podcast, I got to speak with Jackie Randles, who’s the New South Wales manager for Inspiring Australia, and we got to talk about citizen science and why it’s so important.

[00:32:16]
Jackie Randles: You can find a citizen science project that meets your interest. So Redmap, for instance, is one all about fishing. If you happen to love fishing or if you do anything on the water, that’s probably going to be the one for you. And that one is simply if you see an unusual species that you don’t normally see—you might see an unusual fish or you might see a whale that’s moving up towards Queensland too early—take a picture of it, upload it to the Redmap platform, and marine scientists from around Australia will analyse it and you’re helping identify movements of species.

[00:32:55]
Ben Newsome: Yes, definitely worth checking out different ways to be able to do citizen science in your local community, in your backyard even. You just need some form of a device to be able to submit that data that you measure. There are so many different things you can be doing. You can be doing bird monitoring surveys, you can be exploring the sea floor, Streamwatch, you can be doing Feather Map, Galaxy Explorer, Wildlife Spotter—you name it, there’s all these different ways and I guarantee there’s somewhere in your local community or around the nation that you hang around in, there would be a way that you’d be able to contribute.

[00:33:33]
Ben Newsome: It’s well worth your time. And look, in regards to what we were talking about during this podcast, if you don’t have a science festival around the place in your area, maybe it’s worth seeing if you can pull together a mini festival in your local school or community. It’s just a matter of getting some like minds together, maybe finding some funding or if not run some sort of fundraising drive to be able to make it happen, and start small and build from there. It’s well worth your time. Anyway, I hope you make that vibrant and if you’re already running one, make it even more engaging, make as many things and layers as possible. Everyone will love it and you’ll have fun doing it in the meantime as well. Anyway, you’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I will catch you next week.

[00:34:07]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S.

[00:34:34]
Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Sydney Science Festival and why was it established?
The Sydney Science Festival is a city-wide initiative launched in 2015 to coordinate and “stitch together” the various science events happening across Sydney during National Science Week. By uniting these fractured events under one banner, the festival provides a stronger platform for marketing, attracts higher-calibre talent, and creates a more cohesive experience for the public.

How can scientists and researchers participate in the festival?
Scientists can get involved through an Expression of Interest (EOI) process. They can either run their own independent events or participate in larger established programmes, such as “Scientist Speed Dating” or family-oriented activations. The festival producers help connect researchers with diverse audiences to help build their science communication skills.

What is “Scientist Speed Dating” and how does it work?
Formally known as “Meet a Scientist”, this programme involves a panel of experts from organisations like the CSIRO or local universities. Members of the public sit down with a scientist for a short, five-minute conversation to discuss their research. It is designed to be an informal, non-romantic, and highly accessible way for people to engage directly with experts.

What is “Citizen Science” and how can people get involved?
Citizen science involves members of the public contributing to real scientific research and data collection. Examples mentioned include Redmap (tracking unusual fish species), Streamwatch, and Wildlife Spotter. Most projects simply require a mobile device to submit observations, allowing science engagement to happen 365 days a year, not just during festival windows.

Why is evaluation considered so critical for science events?
Evaluation is essential for proving the value of science communication to stakeholders and corporate partners. It goes beyond counting attendees to track attitudinal changes, increases in scientific literacy, and long-term societal impact. This data helps build a case for continued funding and the organisation of future festivals.

Extra thought ideas to consider

The Venue as a Message: Consider how the location of a science event changes its accessibility. By hosting science “in the pub” or in town halls rather than just in lecture theatres, the festival aims to break the “elitist” stigma. Reflect on how your own school or local organisation might use non-traditional spaces to make STEM feel more relatable to the broader community.

Scalability and Quality: The producers emphasize that a small event done extremely well is better than a “bigger-than-Ben-Hur” production that lacks quality engagement. For those looking to start their own local science initiatives, what are the essential “nuggets”—such as logistics, audience identification, and clear communication goals—that must be mastered before attempting to scale up?

Uncovering Hidden Science Stories: Catherine highlights the goal of showcasing Indigenous science and “hidden” stories that don’t always get mainstream outreach. Discuss how science communication can better represent diverse cultural perspectives and historical scientific contributions that have traditionally been overlooked in Western education programmes.