State Conference 2023

Congratulations to all of the students and teachers who attended the Wonder of Science State Conference! We were so excited to welcome teams from across the State with over 290 people attending the 2023 Wonder of Science State Conference at The University of Queensland including 240 in-person and an additional 57 zooming in virtually.

Students who have won Regional Conferences across Queensland presented the results of the term-long Challenge Task research projects competing to be State Champions!

Students also participated in workshops on Owl ecology, fungi and food throughout the day and participated in a speed meet session with our Flying Scientists and Young Science Ambassadors.

A special congratulations to the winning teams

Year 4:

First Place - Kimberley Park State School

Second Place - Taroom State School

Third Place - Brightwater State School

Year 5:

First Place - Taroom State School

Second Place - Stretton State College

Third Place - Hambledon State School and St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Chinchilla

Year 6:

First Place - Kimberley Park State School and Brightwater State School

Second Place - Meandarra State School

Third Place - Mourilyan State School

Year 7:

First Place - Spinifex State College - Mount Isa

Second Place - St Mary's Catholic College

Third Place - Redlands College

Year 8:

First Place - Foxwell State Secondary College

Second Place - Rockhampton State High School

Third Place - Spinifex State College

Year 9:

First Place – Bundaberg State High School

Second Place - Stretton State College

Third Place - Foxwell State College

Congratulations to Chase from Hambledon State School and Kevin from Kimberley Park State School for receiving the STEM Excellence Award (an award for a Year 4 – 9 student who shows a great commitment to STEM).

A big thank you to Queensland Chief Scientist Professor Kerrie Wilson for providing an insightful keynote presentation for students. We loved one of your takeaways: "Most things fail in science, but that's part of the scientific process"

We were also featured on 7NEWs Toowoombah!

We are also very excited to announce that 80% of State Champions in 2023 were female! Incredible!

Thank you to our partners including Arrow Energy, Rio Tinto, Orica, GroundProbe, QUT (Queensland University of Technology), Griffith University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Queensland Trust for Nature, Queensland Government and Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering for making WoS possible.

QUT Metro Regional Conference

Thank you to all of the students who attended the special "Halloween" edition of our Metro Regional Conference on 31 October 2023 at QUT (Queensland University of Technology)!

Students presented the results of their Challenge Tasks and participated in workshops and speed-meet at scientist events.

Congratulations to the winning teams:

Year 7 - Redlands College
Year 8 - A tie! St Mary's College, Ipswich and Stretton State College
Year 9 - Stretton State College

Thank you to the QUT, Griffith University and The University of Queensland students who judged and ran workshops on the day! Our Young Science Ambassadors donned their best spooky hats for the event!

Thank you also to Perry Collier who represented one of our funding partners Rio Tinto on the day.

Wonder of Science in Cairns 2023 - Our biggest Cairns Regional Conference yet!

Last week Wonder of Science held the biggest Cairns Regional Conference ever. With over 200 people attending including 165 students from 13 schools from Cairns, Innisfail, Mourilyan, Mossman, Port Douglas and surrounding areas! Congratulations to all of the students who presented the results of their Challenge Task Projects.

Congratulations to the winning teams:

Year 4 - Mossman State School and Port Douglas State School
Year 5 - Hambledon State School
Year 6 - Mourilyan State School
Year 7 - A tie! St Mary's Catholic College and Innisfail State College
Year 8 - Peace Lutheran College
Year 9 - Redlynch State College

A special congratulations to our Cairns Distance Education Year 6 student who participated virtually in the conference, zooming in all the way from India!

Our Cairns region is supported by Rio Tinto. Thank you to Rio Tinto for their ongoing support of the program!

We are excited to confirm that we will be back in Cairns and Far North Queensland next year!

Thank you to the 16 Young Science Ambassadors from QUT (Queensland University of Technology), Griffith University, The University of Queensland who attended the conference as judges and workshop leaders. Students had the opportunity to meet these scientists and learn about their research in our speed-meet event on the day.

Thank you to James Cook University for hosting us for this event!

Students also participated in ecology and aerodynamics workshops on the day.

Gladstone Regional Confernece

A big congratulations to the WONDER-full teams who participated in our Gladstone Regional Conference. Schools from Gladstone, Rockhampton, Bundaberg and Biloela ventured to CQUniversity Gladstone to present the results of their Challenge Task research project and participate in workshops throughout the day.

Students also met 12 STEM researchers (Young Science Ambassadors) from Griffith University, QUT, University of the Sunshine Coast and The University of Queensland.

An extra congratulations to our winning teams:

Year 5 - Gladstone West State School
Year 6 - Kin Kora State School
Year 7 - Bundaberg State High School
Year 8 - Rockhampton State High School
Year 9 - Bundaberg State High School

Many schools attending this conference are supported by Orica and GroundProbe! Thank you to the Orica representatives who attended this event.

Thank you to CQU Gladstone for hosting us again this year.

We are excited to see a few previous Regional Conference winners amongst this year's winners! We look forward to seeing all of the winning teams at State Conference in Brisbane!

Mount Isa Regional Confernece 2023

Congratulations to the teams from Mount Isa and Cloncurry who participated in our 6th Annual Mount Isa Regional Conference on 10 October 2023.

Thank you to all of the Year 4 - 8 students who participated from across the region. Students presented the results of their Term 3 Challenge Task projects and participated in Cabbage Chemistry and Marine Ecology workshops! Students also participated in a speed-meet session where they got to know all 11 of the scientists from three universities (UQ, QUT and Griffith University) visiting Mount Isa for the conference.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

A special congratulations to the winning teams:

Year 4 - St Keiran's Catholic School, Mount Isa
Year 5 - A tie! Happy Valley State School and St Keiran's Catholic School, Mount Isa
Year 6 - Happy Valley State School
Year 7 - Spinifex State College
Year 8 - Spinifex State College

Thank you to Orica and GroundProbe for sponsoring schools in the Mount Isa region to participate in Wonder of Science.

Thank you also to Spinifex State College who has hosted this event for the past six years!

Something of a WoS Mount Isa tradition, the Wonder of Science team gathered for a photo at Outback Isa at the end of the day to celebrate:

Sharing our YSAs’ stories

In celebration of reaching over 100,000 people since 2012, we are sharing some of our Young Science Ambassadors’ favourite moments in the program. Here are three stories written by Young Science Ambassadors about their Wonder of Science adventures! We hope you enjoy them!

David Sutton – Queensland University of Technology

A YSA since 2018, David has travelled across the state for Wonder of Science and is among our most active ambassadors. David is an experimental laser physicist researching micro-scale 3D printing of metals through light-driven chemical reactions:

David SUTTON was also the RECIPIENT OF THE GORDON DUNLOP MEDAL (CLICK HERE FOR THAT STORY)

“In 2021 I had the opportunity to visit Year 11 and 12 students in Cairns considering their path following school and into university. I was asked a question about Aerospace Engineering which is outside my field, but through working with fellow YSAs from the UQ Hypersonics group in the past, I was able to direct this student to look at UQ if she was interested in pursuing it further and she said she had no idea she could do it in Queensland. It was wonderful knowing that she had a new idea about what she could be after school just by being able to ask a fairly simple question.

When visiting students in different regions it’s always amazing to see the skills that some of these students possess that are well outside what you might expect for school students. Many Year 6 students have welded their own seismographs together in the Darling Downs for example, and students in and around Brisbane have created entire 3D modelled projects that show how a sustainable village might operate in the future to help deal with the realities of climate change.”

Tatiana Briody – The University of Queensland

A YSA since 2022, Tatiana is a PhD candidate with the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at the University of Queensland and investigates the benefits of gene editing in improving resilience to infection in cattle. Here she speaks about her favourite WoS moments, including conferences and developing a lab tour for our Gen-STEM mentoring program:

TATIANA FACILITATING THE GEN-STEM LAB TOUR AT UQ - Find out more about Mentoring Programs HERE

“Gladstone Young Science Ambassador Trip – I got the opportunity to fly to Gladstone with the Wonder of Science program as part of one of the first visits to the region since the pandemic. Many teachers were away sick, and those that were left had twice as many students to teach; and yet, they made us feel welcome and prioritised the YSA visit, ensuring all the students were able to engage with the lesson and meet us. It left me with a feeling of gratitude for our teachers and pride in the WoS program to be able to bring these experiences to regional and remote students.

Miles Regional Conference – my first trip as a YSA was to the Miles Regional Conference and it was full of excitement and colour and kids in cow onesies and I loved every part of it. I was impressed by the passion and innovation students brought to their projects, and the curiosity they had for each other’s work. In particular, the students’ questions for my own project led to me to think about the implications of my research in a different way and I left the experience reinvigorated in my work.

Gen-STEM lab tour at the University of Queensland – I had the privilege of working together with Alex and others from the 2023 Gen-STEM program to organise a tour of my own lab for our Year 7 mentees. The tour involved showing the girls where I work, the kinds of tools we use and hearing from a senior female researcher at our institute. The students got to dress up in lab coats and goggles and practice using pipettes - just like we do - giving them the chance to actually see what a career in STEM could look like for them.”

Zheng Jie Chia - The University of Queensland

New to Wonder of Science this year! Zheng is a student favourite with his Cabbage DNA workshop at Miles Regional Conference being the talk of the town. Here, he tells a story about his recent trip to Mount Isa:

“On the Mt Isa visit, I was asked how to be a chef by a secondary student. Without much thinking, I told the student that there were culinary art degrees in the universities. However, he was worried he would not have a suitable enough ATAR for university.

ZHENG AT Miles Regional Conference - full conference story here

I told him that he could start with TAFE or study another program at the university first to gain more credit to study culinary arts. Before leaving, I added, “You might change your ambition three years later. You can drive straight to Brisbane or zig-zag through your journey to somewhere you never thought before!”. I am often asked to advise students about pursuing a particular career at the tertiary level. However, it is also an opportunity to reflect on my journey to PhD study. I started with a non-science degree, working in a pharmacy for two years before going back to university again to study a biology-focused PhD; something I never planned seven years ago!

Drawing of Zheng by a Year 7 student.

After the conclusion of a Year 7 visit, I was told to wait after class by another ambassador because someone drew a portrait for me. Being a Young Science Ambassador, I visit schools to give science lessons to students. However, I also learn from students on every WoS visit. On the Mt Isa visit, I saw more than 100 Year 7 students in a week and gave multiple Year 7 lessons, but the portrait reminded me that I am new to every student and keeping an enthusiastic disposition is essential as you never know how deep the impression you give to students will be during these exciting WoS visits. See attached photo—credit to Lexi from Spinifex State College, Mt Isa.

Thank you for allowing me to visit so many great schools!”

David Sutton and ZHENG Jie Chia on a recent trip to Mount Isa.

Brightwater Regional Conference

Congratulations to all of the teams who attended our Brightwater Regional Conference on Tuesday!

Thank you to Mount Mee State School, Brightwater State School and Banksia Beach State School for joining us at the conference.

Our winning teams were:

Year 4 - Brightwater State School

Year 5 - Mount Mee State School

Year 6 - A tie! Mount Mee State School and Brightwater State School!

Students also participated in DNA and food web ecology workshops.

Special mention to the wonderful pink seismograph (final photo) from the Year 6 winning Brightwater team!

Thank you to the 14 Young Science Ambassadors from The University of Queensland, QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and Griffith University for joining us on the day.

Over 100,000 people reached since 2012!

Wonder of Science is excited to announce that we have reached over 100,000 people across Queensland since we began in 2012!

Thank you to the staff, teachers, students, partners, universities, Young Science Ambassadors and Flying Scientists who have made this possible. We look forward to continuing to foster a STEM culture in Queensland schools in the years to come.

Here are just some of our favourite photos from recent years.

Lockyer Regional Student Conference - 2018

Students from the Lockyer region gathered at the University of Queensland campus in Gatton to share their responses to the Wonder of Science challenge tasks and take part in fun workshops. They competed for the title of Regional Champion and an invitation to present to their peers from all the Queensland regions at the State Conference to be held in November at the University of Queensland St Lucia campus. 

The regional student conferences provide the opportunity for students to practise effective science communication, conveying the process and outcomes of their scientific inquiry project which builds higher order thinking skills and develops scientific understanding.

Well done to all the students from our participating schools, and particularly those teams selected to represent their class at the conference. Congratulations to the following student teams named regional champions who will join us at the State Conference in November:

Year 7 - St Mary's College, Ipswich
Year 8 - Rosewood State High School and Laidley State High School, tied 1st place
Year 9 - St Mary's College, Ipswich
Year 10 - Lockyer District State High School

Song: Everlasting [Top Shelf Sounds Release] 
Artists: Jansku Music provided by Top Shelf Sounds : https://goo.gl/18xxWt