The Sapphire Coast Science Festival may be officially over for another year but scientific learning will continue, with new ideas and activities thanks to the centre’s marine educator.
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There were a lot of ideas that were thrown around but in this industry funding is always an issue.
- Jillian Browning, IPMEN
Jillian Browning recently attended the International Pacific Marine Educators Network Conference in Indonesia and now she is back and keen to try out some of things she learnt at the week long event.
The International Pacific Marine Educators Network (IPMEN) is a network of marine educators whose shared vision is to nurture a fuller understanding of the ocean’s value, leading to informed decisions that conserve and restore the integrity of the ocean’s ecosystems in the Pacific.
Ms Browning spent seven months in Indonesia at the end of 2015 and the start of this year volunteering. During this time she became a member of the IPMEN organising committee and despite coming back to Australia in June, she couldn’t resist heading back to both attend and present at the conference.
“I made a presentation about some of the work the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre is doing in the local area to marine experts from all over the pacific,” she said. “I also presented on including citizen science with marine education and how to get citizen science into education programs both in schools and with informal learning like the Discovery Centre.”
Ms Browning said op top of the myriad of games, activities and resources she learnt about she was also provided with ideas of experiences that may help to bring more people into the centre.
”There were a lot of ideas that were thrown around but in this industry funding is always an issue.”
The Sapphire Coast Science Festival officially wrapped up on Sunday with a fun-filled day of explosions and robots in Bega.
Half a dozen stuffed toys were shoved into a barrel and then blasted into the air and kids were taught how to turn a household vacuum cleaner into a marshmellow bazooka.
It was the perfect way to wrap up a week-long event filled with activities all over the Bega Valley for the young and the young at heart.
The Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery ran a number of different science based activities which proved popular with the younger demographic. They were taught all about how fish work at the very informative fish dissection. But nothing compared to the laughter and fun emanating from the centre when they had some slime time.
This hands-on experiment is an example of the kind of activities the centre plans to run in the future to ensure marine science education continues.
