The SPECTRA program was introduced to Pennant Hills Public School as an extracurricular activity to help support the science and technology discipline, and more broadly STEM connections, for students in Stage 3. There are currently 35 students of mixed ability completing the program. Throughout their involvement in the SPECTRA program, these…

The purpose of this open letter is to report on an innovative cross-cultural science education program that was introduced to upper primary and lower high schools across New South Wales over a four-year period. Titled 'Sky Stories', the program blends current Western science understandings with Indigenous Australian knowledge of astronomy in order…

This article describes how the Advancing Science and Engineering through Laboratory Learning (ASELL) Schools program was developed. ASELL School's directive is to facilitate the embedding of inquiry-based learning in secondary school classrooms through workshop-based teacher professional development (PD). The approach of ASELL Schools is to…

There is increasing interest in collaborative arrangements between schools and community scientists to enhance student engagement with learning. We describe research in which we identify a wide range of such collaborations in Australia, and investigate through interviews with community participants their perspectives on the purposes of…

"MyScience" ("www.myscience.edu.au") is a pioneering primary science initiative that uses a distinctive team approach, with primary teachers, primary students and volunteer mentor scientists working collaboratively as students conduct authentic scientific investigations to find answers to their own questions. The initiative is…