A wonderful week of Sydney Science Trail!

A boy looking at a frog in a glass box

Each year the Australian Museum celebrates National Science Week, and for the first time in two years, we were able to hold this science extravaganza on site! Learn how our scientists took part in this jam-packed week.

This year from August 13 – 21, the Australian Museum in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney presented Sydney Science Trail– a jam-packed program of school excursions for primary and secondary students, community events and an online trail. The Sydney Science Trail (SST) welcomed 1,370 students on-site over five days, and 4,227 visitors to the Australian Museum’s Community Saturday event on 20 August, with the SST Expo being a major feature.

 A smiling boy with a fossil jaw
Sydney Science Trail was held in person this year, much to everyone’s excitement!
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum

For the last two years, SST has been held exclusively online due to COVID-19 restrictions, and the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) staff scientists were very excited to take part in person this year on site. AMRI is the science division of the Museum, and AMRI staff work on understanding and responding to challenges facing our planet through scientific research, communication and education.

From Monday (15 August) to Saturday (20 August), the AMRI stall was set up at the Expo alongside many wonderful partners and collaborators including the valued support of the University of New England, University of Technology Sydney and the Centenary Institute. Each day at the AMRI stall, our scientists shared their work and our collections, representing a different branch of AMRI each day.

Expo with stalls and people
Expo at the Sydney Science Trial 2022
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum

On Monday, we had our wonderful digitisation and citizen science experts on the stall, teaching secondary kids about FrogID, DigiVol, and the Australasian Fishes project. A crowd favourite was Wildlife spotter – students and teachers trying to spot the animal in our camera trap footage. Another favourite activity was learning all about molluscs with digitisation officer, Jae Santos!

two people at stall with models and pictures of frogs
Adam Woods and Rhiannon Stephens teaching kids about citizen science.
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum
Two young people at an expo stall
Jae Santos and Natalie Tees at the AMRI stall.
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum

Our Collection Care and Conservation team was teed up for Tuesday – our CC&C team are experts in preventive conservation programs and treatment programs. On Tuesday, the team taught kids about the many uses of Japanese tissue paper in our work. You may think the images below are of real feathers but they are in fact coloured Japanese tissue paper, used to replace real feathers, on the taxidermy specimen below!

Collection Care and Conservation.

Wednesday was the first day of the primary school program, where Ross Pogson (Collection Manager of Mineralogy and Petrology) wowed the students. Ross shared many facts and stories about our rocks from outer space – I stuck to my limited knowledge of quartz crystal and garnet (did you know each side is a rhombus?).

Man at an expo stall with rocks and meteorites
Ross Pogson at the AMRI stall teaching kids about meteorites! Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum

On Thursday, the students had an opportunity to ‘guess the specimens’ from our Ornithology and Mammalogy teams; another crowd favourite with the kids was asking: can you tell the difference between the introduced and native species pictured here?

Women at an expo stall with skulls of animals
Learning all about mammals with Dr Mark Eldridge and Annie Post.
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum
Stuffed myna birds
One is a native noisy miner bird and one is the introduced Indian myna bird, can you tell which one is which?
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum

Wrapping up the school visits on Friday was the wildly popular ACWG team, where students got to extract DNA from bananas…which then became strawberries (the bananas were a bit too green to be smashed, but would it really be science if we didn’t do a trial run first?). Students queued up all day to take part in this experiment!

Women holding up a test tube with liquid in it.
Dr Greta Frankham in our ACWG team, Dr Matthew Lott and Dr Caitlin Morrison, who are very excited for DNA extractions!
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum

Saturday was the Community Day, a huge day packed with many activities for anyone and everyone to enjoy. We had our staff from Life and Geosciences, Digitisation, Mammalogy, Ornithology, CC&C, ACWG and more take part – Natalie Tees was also part of an all day program teaching everyone about bugs!

 A boy looking at a small green frog in a box
The AMRI Citizen Science stall had some active volunteers!
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum
Women showing a frog soft toy to a young girl
Nadiah Roslan teaching the public about FrogID.
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum
One woman and two men standing at a table
Associate Directors, Julie Ellmers and Dr Stephen Jackson, with Paul Flemons at our AMRI stall.
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum
Man at a lectern with a slide of a rock behind him
Ross Pogson delivering talk during Community Day, Sydney Science Trail 2022.
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum
 A boy with a large mineral rock in his hands smiling at the camera, with a women.
Learning all about minerals at the AMRI stall.
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum
 A seated woman showing a child a mineral rock
Teaching the public about minerals and mammals on Community Day, at the AMRI stall.
Image: Laura Martin © Australian Museum
 A young women using a magnifying glass.
The Bugtastic Program in the AM Education rooms.
Image: James Horan © Australian Museum
A young woman holding up a display of butterflies in a glass box.
Natalie Tees at Bugtastic!
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum
A women with a test tube showing it to a young boy.
Dr Greta Frankham, Dr Matthew Lott and Dr Caitlin Morrison, teaching kids about DNA extractions.
Image: Laura Martin © Australian Museum
A woman showing a test tube with liquid to a young girl
DNA extraction of strawberries with our ACWG staff, Dr Greta Frankham and Dr Caitlin Morrison.
Image: Laura Martin © Australian Museum
Collection Care and Conservation Team
Our Collection Care and Conservation Team.
Image: Meagan Warwick © Australian Museum

For those unable to visit the Museum, SST online featured on-demand activities, digital tours and blogs, including features of our Lizard Island Research Station, and a ‘day in the life of’ blog from palaeontologist Dr Matthew McCurry.

A huge thank you to Alison Mellor and the Public Programs team, who brought this great Science Week celebration to life, and everyone who took part in SST, to make it such a special, engaging and fun event.

We’d like to express gratitude to Inspiring Australia for funding support as part of National Science Week, and our partners, University of New England, University of Technology Sydney, the Centenary Institute and ABC Radio Sydney for their support in promoting science to our community, their presence and insights were highly valued across Sydney Science Trail. A thank you also to our collaborators and staff who dedicated their time, energy and passion to these programs – you made this a wonderful week of science! Save the date for next year’s Sydney Science Trail, which will be held from 12 – 20 August 2023 .

Stay tuned for all Sydney Science Trail news on our website.

Meagan Warwick, AMRI Project and Communications Officer, Australian Museum.

Alison Mellor, Creative Producer, Science Engagement and Events, Australian Museum.


Sydney Science Trail 2022 was supported with funding from Inspiring Australia NSW.

First published as a blog From smashing strawberries to marvellous minerals – what a wonderful week of Sydney Science Trail! by the Australian Museum, and reproduced with permission.