EXCURSIONS
It’s not always easy to get away for excursions. At remote rural schools, the financial burden of travelling long distances can add substantially to the cost of even simple activities. Equally, the task of organising excursions for students who may be coping with mobility issues can add an extra layer of complexity and cost for special schools.
So, in a clever twist on the old adage of bringing the mountain to Mohammed, why not consider bringing the excursion to the classroom instead.
Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra, has been running outreach programs in towns and communities across Australia since 1985.
The longest running is the Shell Questacon Science Circus, a regional road show of energetic, young science communicators from Canberra’s Australian National University, which tours regional Australia in a cavernous semi-trailer for 18 to 20 weeks every year.
It’s 24 years since the circus first began presenting interactive science shows in local schools. For the local community, an added bonus when the circus rolls into town are 50 science exhibits unloaded from the truck and set up as a public, hands-on exhibition in a community space for everyone to learn and discover science and technology together.
And that’s just the start of Questacon’s outreach initiatives. There’s also the Tenix Questacon Maths Squad, who travel to regional, remote and rural areas of Australia, equipped with over 500 hands-on puzzles, tasks and activities to challenge and excite students from Year 3 to 12.
And the Qestacon Science Squad, a team of professional science communicators, who present fun-filled shows featuring spectacular science demonstrations. For younger children, the Questacon Science Play brings hands-on activities, portable exhibits and presentations to engage ages 2 to 5 in science play.
Questacon’s outreach programs visit thousands of schools in every state and territory every year, with an estimated 300,000 people in local communities taking part in the programs and exhibitions they bring.
But, if you can’t wait for Questacon’s vist, many state museums offer outreach programs in their own states, with some activities even available by post.
Museum Victoria, which cares for that state’s scientific and cultural collections, has offered a kit loan service to schools in rural and metropolitan Victoria for the past five years.
The kits provide access to collections from one of Museum Victoria’s four sites: the Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks and the Royal Exhibition Building, for students who may find it difficult to visit.
Each kit is available for hire for 5 weeks at a cost of $55, and all include a selection of specimens, objects, replicas and photographs, which students can handle at much closer range than a museum visit would allow.
All kits are available to send by post. The ‘Finders Keepers’ kit includes everything needed for keeping bugs at home or in the classroom. ‘It’s Rocket Science’ is a suitcase packed full of curriculum-focussed activities, rocket models and equipment for experiments, while the ‘Polar Secrets’ suitcase reveals a range of activities related to the frozen wilderness of the Antarctic.
Says Manger of the Discovery Programs Sarah Edwards: “It’s a fantastic way of ensuring that there’s the opportunity to engage with the museum’s objects and collections, but in a way that is not presenter directed but is self paced.
“It means the teacher can engage with students in learning at their pace... and if kids don’t get through the activities, they’ve got five weeks to work through the range of learning materials.”
In Western Australia, Scitech is a not-for-profit, hands-on science centre that since 1988 has prided itself on making the world of science an inspiring and exciting experience: “Our mission is to increase interest and participation by Western Australians in science and technology”.
As one of WA’s biggest professional learning providers, Scitech delivers educational programs to around 2500 teachers every year. That includes an extensive range of outreach programs, including the ‘CSIRO Lab-on-Legs’, a science educational partnership between BHP Billiton Iron Ore, CSIRO and Scitech.
‘CSIRO Lab-on-Legs’ is available for upper primary through to high school and comes complete with exciting hands-on laboratory experiences that highlight the everyday applications of scientific research, from forensics to food, the environment to electronics. Once set up in a host school, it can cater for 4-5 classes each day.
Scitech also offers a travelling mathematics program called ‘The Maths Factory’, which uses puzzles, full body mazes, maths problems and conundrums from famous mathematicians, to encourage students to use a range of problem-solving skills and learn how maths is involved in our daily lives.
But bringing the excursion to the classroom needn’t mean that students only get to interact with inanimate objects – there are plenty of ‘live’ exhibits up for consideration as well.
Wild Action Zoo, “where the zoo comes to you”, has been bringing into the classroom all sorts of scaled, furry and swimming creatures from their base in Mount Macedon in Victoria for the past 17 years.
The zoo, which employs a team of 12 science graduates and educates over 350,000 children a year, was set up by Christopher and Nicole Humfrey.
Both qualified zoologists, the pair wanted to create interactive hands-on ‘incursions’ that would captivate and inspire children, while educating them about “the amazing biodiversity of our country”.
All Wild Action Zoo’s incursions are tailored to suit the age range and curriculums of Victorian classrooms, from pre-school to year 12. And all include the opportunity for students to touch and interact safely with animals.
Wild Action Zoo’s ‘Rockpool Discovery’ brings the beach to the classroom, with a collection that includes live sea stars, elephant snails, sea urchins, giant mud crabs, shark egg cases, sea cucumbers and an octopus.
By the end of ‘Insect-a-Mania & Mini Beasts’ students will have had the opportunity to interact, touch and observe a whole range of native Australian invertebrates. ‘Endangered Species’ considers the philosophical questions of what is natural and what is unnatural.
The zoo’s ‘Australian Animals’ package comes into the classroom complete with a live baby salt-water crocodile, live (non-venomous) python snakes, fresh-water turtles, frogs, skinks, dragon lizards and geckoes into the classroom for a one hour visit.
Being able to touch the visiting animals is central to what Wild Action Zoo offers, says Nicole Humfrey.
“We don’t take any animals that aren’t tame. Everything that we take into the classroom, the students can physically touch and hold as we move around the circle,” she says
“I think once children physically touch an animal, there’s a lot more empathy there than looking behind a glass wall or a cage.”
By the time the presentation is over, not even pre-schoolers baulk at the idea of handling a baby crocodile.
“That’s the last animal to come out,” says Nicole.
“We work our way up with all the quiet cute cuddly ones... and by the end you have children in tears if they don’t get to touch the crocodile.
“It has a bandage around its mouth, so it’s perfectly safe and we explain that to the children.
“And it seems to be a hit by the time it comes out.”
Wild Action Zoo also works with special schools, early intervention groups, and adults with disabilities.
Even daily working rural experiences can be brought into city classrooms. Animals on the Move, in Gembrook Victoria, will bring Brandy the milking cow to school so that children from kindergarten to year 2 can see that milk, butter and cream doesn’t just come from the supermarket.
In the hour and a half-long activity, children can take turns to milk Brandy, discover how to separate the cream from the milk and finish with making butter using different methods.
“The kids get to taste test the butter and they can either keep it or we take it back to the farm,” says Rachel Woodham, daughter of Brandy’s owner Leonie Woodham.
Brandy, says Rachel, is happy to go anywhere: “She’s just happy to be there eating.”
For more information about Questacon’s outreach programs visit:questacon.edu.au/ontour/programs.html
For more information about Museum Victoria’s kit loan service visit museumvictoria.com.au/education/discovery-programs/
For more information about Scitech visit:scitech.org.au
For more information about Wild Action Zoo’s programs visit:wildaction.com.au/educational/index.html
For more information about Animals on the Move visit: animalsonthemove.com.au
