Past Programs
Education - 2008
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998
New approach to undergraduate science
11/10/2008
Phil Long says very little of interest is offered in undergraduate courses. He has broken down the typical large physics lecture with 600 people in a lecture hall, and has smaller groups doing both theory and practical experiments in the same session. He also sees application for digital technology, allowing work to remain, be classified and accessed, rather than decay on paper.
Trends in science education
11/10/2008
School students are turning away from hard sciences such as physics. Helen Haste discusses the trends and asks whether young students get what they look for in science courses.
Magic helps children's confidence
27/09/2008
Richard Wiseman teaches children magic - basic tricks, but they still require a lot of practice. Anyone can learn magic tricks. It's a matter of discipline. Learning magic assists in self-esteem, confidence and sociability.
Genetic anomaly could explain severe difficulty with arithmetic
27/09/2008
Most Australian Aboriginal languages are deficient in words for numbers. Brian Butterworth sought out children who were monolingual in such a language. He set them tasks involving numbers and counting involving spatial strategy. The children completed the tasks as well as children who grew up with English. This finding is important as there is debate as to whether you can enumerate when there are no counting words in your language. The suggestion is that numbers are wired into the human brain and perhaps a genetic anomaly explains why some children have severe difficulties with arithmetic.
Australian student attends NASA Space Camp
30/08/2008
Anabelle Hill describes her experience attending a space camp for young students run by NASA at The US Space and Rocket Center, in Huntsville Alabama.
Green at work - saving energy in the workplace
30/08/2008
Sandy and Flacco find the off switch.
Questacon 20 years and going strong
16/08/2008
Twenty years ago Questacon was born out of the ANU as an experiment to gauge how the public liked hands on science. It was so popular that it became Australia's National Science Centre in Canberra. Fast forward to 2008 and Questacon is still buzzing and more importantly attracting children, teenagers and adults to science.
The Eden Project
12/07/2008
An old clay quarry has been turned into a tourist attraction which focuses on how people interact with plants. The site consists of domes which act as greenhouses. The Eden Project has a partnership with Brisbane City Council. Paul Willis reports.
Research funding in Australia
10/05/2008
Vicki Sara argues the Australian Research Council needs to have its funding quadrupled. She says the ARC's situation is similar to it's position a decade ago. Australia is losing people to better paying positions aborad. Post doctoral fellowships and PhD scholarships are offered at $20,000. This compares with marketplace positions easily 5 times this level. The result is people leave universities and move away from research. Tertiary education is in decline. Vicki Sara says education is an investment which protects against economic downturn.
E-science
26/04/2008
The internet and advanced computing is allowing a more collaborative way of doing science. Wendy Barnaby reports on some areas of research where new surprising results are being obtained.
Ten Questions Science Can't Answer (Yet!)
12/04/2008
Michael Hanlon discusses some of the questions in his book, questions which science has not yet come to grips with, or has chosen to ignore. He argues quite plausibly that dogs can have a sense of humour. He has some new suggestions for current dilemmas explaining why some populations are getting so enormously fat. Michael Hanlon then previews the approach he will take with his next book, Eternity.
One laptop per child
22/03/2008
It was the ambition of Kevin Rudd during the last election and it is the plan being realised by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. The only way Professor Negroponte can realise his dream is by having cheap laptops, costing $100, or eventually, less. How is this done? And what difference do these computers make in the villages of Africa, South America and Asia? Professor Negroponte, founder of the Media Lab at MIT and author of the bestseller Being Digital, talks to an audience in Boston, Massachusetts.
