15 Jul CU goes to UWA’s Great Southern Marine Research Facility

While most of us were snuggled up avoiding the cold blustery winter weather this morning, some of our SPPS Children’s University members were off exploring and learning at the University of Western Australia (UWA).  UWA kindly invited our Children’s University members to a free school holiday program at the Great Southern Marine Research Facility.  All of the learning activities were hands on and LOTS of fun. Here’s a brief snapshot of what they did:

1. The UWA Lab: In the UWA Lab they had great fun experiencing biology in action by extracting DNA from strawberries. WOW! Then they got up close with some marine animal and plant samples. It was “EPIC”
2. Wave Hello to Renewable Energy: Members learnt about the power of wave energy. They looked at specially designed water tanks that create ocean environments & discovered some of the wave energy technologies being trialled across the world. Albany is the perfect place to be when it comes to wave energy!
3. Water Bugs: It was super interesting to explore the wonders of water bugs through real life observations. There were SO many busy and active water bugs!
4. Waterbomb Alternative: No more plastic water bombs!  The children learnt about plastics and the impact on our environment before learning how to make paper water bombs as an alternative to using plastic water filled balloons.  The best part was throwing them!

Thank you to our Children’s University Project Officer Alex and the UWA staff and students for sharing their passion and knowledge to inspire our students! We can’t wait for the next program.  In the meantime, here’s some photos of the learning action.