Beer science. Health in the Red (hot) Centre. Giant inflatable surf wave. Seafood future for Groote Eylandt Science Week in NT
National Science Week
Scientists, experts and event organisers are available for interview before and throughout the ‘week’.
Here are Territorian highlights from the national festival that reaches more than 3 million people through 2,500+ events. National Science Week will run 15 to 23 August 2026.
Direct contact details for each event listed below and online.
Contact national publicist Tanya Ha for contacts and tips: [email protected] or 0404 083 863.
Highlights for Northern Territory:
- Why won’t your beer hold its head?
- Gnarly inflatable surf wave sets stage for marine education
- Alice Springs and Chile connect through poetry, astronomy, and our shared view of the stars
- Garden in the Top End without killing everything
- Remote Territorians learn why climate change is bad for health – Alice Springs
- From mining manganese to farming sea cucumbers, First Nations enterprise secures community’s future ─ Groote Eylandt
- Make your own shark
- Try a hydraulic arm
- Flower power: what is Australia’s most amazing wildflower?
More on these below including contact details for interview.
Or find more stories in your area at ScienceWeek.net.au/events.
Visit the Media Centre for all media releases and images.
Why won’t your beer hold its head? – Winnellie
There’s a surprising amount of physics and chemistry floating on top of your beer glass. Don’t Lose Your Head is a lively, interactive presentation revealing what makes – or destroys – the perfect head, and why it matters.
Hosted by the Darwin and NT Homebrewers at One Mile Brewery, the session uses live demonstrations to break down the roles of ingredients, cleanliness and technique, with the audience helping investigate why foam forms and why it vanishes too soon.
Saturday 22 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/dont-lose-your-head-science-of-beer-foam/winnellie
Media enquiries: Matt Elvey, Darwin and NT Homebrewers, [email protected]
Gnarly inflatable surf wave sets stage for marine education – The Gardens
Acrobatic performers take on environmental education.
Legs On The Wall theatre company brings Australian surf culture and physical theatre together in a show celebrating our shared obsession with the sea.
Performed on a gnarly inflatable wave, Waverider is a family-friendly physical performance that reflects on the marine life who call the ocean their home, and the importance of looking after each other when plunging into the deep.
After the show the inflatable wave turns into a play zone for audience members.
Presented by Darwin Festival and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
From Friday 14 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/waverider
Media enquiries: Kirsti Abbott, [email protected] or call on 0466 726 525.
Alice Springs and Chile connect through poetry, astronomy, and our shared view of the stars – White Gums
Passageways [Caminos] is an international art–science collaboration connecting Central Australia and Chile through poetry, astronomy, and shared southern skies.
Central Australia’s Red Dirt Poetry Festival has joined forces with Chile's International Poetry Festival (ACRUX - Festival Internacional de Poesia) to create an unprecedented South-to-South cultural exchange, connecting communities from South American coast to Australian desert. Both festivals look up to the same southern cross (Acrux) and Magellanic Clouds. Both festivals take place in Dark Skies areas. Australia’s event will highlight the importance of dark skies to astronomy, wildlife and culture, and the challenges faced by light pollution.
Nine poets – six Australian and three Chilean – are working with Australian Astronomers to explore the three core concepts merging poetry with astronomy: Waterways, Signways and Skyways. The project culminates in a flagship bilingual public event on Arrernte Country (Mparntwe/Alice Springs), featuring live sky tours, poetry performances, and a celebration of dark‑sky stewardship and cross‑cultural knowledge exchange.
Thursday 20 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/passageways-caminos
Media enquiries: Laurie May, Red Dirt Poetry Festival, [email protected] or 0404 623 252.
Garden in the Top End without killing everything – Jingili
Gardening in the tropics defeats most newcomers. Landcare NT’s Eco Fair gathers the people who have worked it out, with workshops and talks on native gardening, composting, pruning, irrigation, pest management and water-wise design.
Guided walks and local experts offer personalised advice, while stalls from community groups, environmental organisations and local businesses cover conservation projects, waste reduction and ways to attract native wildlife.
Hands-on nature activities and crafts for children run through the day. Suitable for anyone with a backyard, a balcony full of pot plants, or simple curiosity.
Saturday 22 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/top-end-native-eco-fair
Media enquiries: Landcare NT, [email protected]
Remote Territorians learn why climate change is bad for health – Alice Springs
The climate is changing: what does that mean for our health, especially in the Red (hot) Centre? And what can we do about it?
Ask Dr Rishu Thakur, a researcher at the Menzies School of Health Research. She works with people living in remote regions so that they can data collection to monitor environmental conditions, document their lived experience of climate change, and co-design adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Rishu has organised the ‘Science for Health: Climate and Health Awareness in Remote Australia’ events in Alice Springs so that locals can explore how the changing climate and extreme heat affect the health of the environment and, directly and indirectly, human health. Students can also learn about science and health careers.
The day will include a Solar Centre scavenger hunt exploring renewable energy, tracking air quality with apps, soil and water testing, microscope sessions exploring beneficial versus harmful microbes and the importance of hand hygiene, and a fun climate and health quiz.
Temperature monitoring with thermal cameras will show indoor versus outdoor heat, the value of shade, and how hot it gets in a closed car – all in full heat-mapping colour. And thermochromic paint (paint that changes colour with temperature) will be used to visually demonstrate surface heat.
Wednesday 19 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/science-for-health-climate-and-health-awareness-in-remote-australia/sadadeen/
Media enquiries: Rishu Thakur, [email protected] or 0469 019 994.
A future for Groote Eylandt after mining - Alyangula
Groote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Its economy relies heavily on manganese mining… which is ending. How do you create a secure future for an island in the middle of nowhere?
Marine biology, Anindilyakwa culture and aquaculture are coming together through an aquaculture enterprise to create jobs and protect the ocean. It’s a project of the Groote Holdings Aboriginal Corporation and the Anindilyakwa community.
Sea cucumber (“trepang” in Anindilyakwa language) is the core product sold to the lucrative Chinese market where it is a culinary delicacy and is used in Chinese medicine. Dried sea cucumber is lightweight, high-value and non-perishable: important for a product that has to be shipped via a 5-day barge ride to Darwin and then exported.
The enterprise puts an ecosystem to work to raise sea cucumbers in a way that cares for Sea Country. Droppings from seaweed-eating rabbitfish provide food for sea cucumbers. The rabbitfish also remove the seaweed scum that blocks the sunlight sea cucumbers need and provide a locally grown food source for the 2,100 people who live across the archipelago. Blacklip oysters help clean the system to the extent that the effluent water from the facility is cleaner than the water that enters it.
The enterprise now produces oysters, fish for local consumption, and edible, as well as sea cucumber.
Students from local Alyangula, Angurugu and Umbakumba schools will visit the Groote Aqua facility for four days of hands-on marine science, aquaculture, microscopes, water testing and community activities exploring how science and Indigenous knowledge can build a sustainable blue economy on Groote Eylandt.
On the fourth day, the site will open to the wider community, giving everyone the chance to experience marine science in action and see the enterprise that will support lives and livelihoods after mining.
Saturday 29 August. Event details: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/from-knowledge-to-independence-science-for-grootes-blue-future/alyangula
Media enquiries: Valentin Thepot, Groote Aqua Aboriginal Corporation aquaculture manager, [email protected] or 0460 012 284.
Val and aquaculture team members and Indigenous GHAC board members are available for media interviews.
Make your own shark – Brinkin
Curious young scientists can learn how sharks adapt to different habitats, then invent their own – choosing body shape, diet and features to help it survive – and build a 3D model out of Play-Doh to take home.
The hands-on workshop at Charles Darwin University’s Casuarina Open Day starts with a multimedia introduction to shark species and how they’re specially adapted to where they live and what they eat. It’s open to everyone, including students and families.
Saturday 8 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/design-your-own-shark/brinkin
Media enquiries: Emily Taljaard, [email protected]
Workshop leader Emily Taljaard available for media interviews.
Try a hydraulic arm – Marrara & Casuarina, NT
Students get first-hand engineering experience of how hydraulic arms make a little bit of effort go a long way.
The Hydraulic Arm STEM Challenge is a workshop that introduces participants to Pascal’s Principle and fluid power, demonstrating how simple machines create mechanical advantage for precise, controlled movement. This hands-on activity highlights the real-world application of science in engineering, from ancient tools to space technology, to inspire future engineers.
Participants will work with professional and student engineer facilitators in small groups to solve increasingly complex challenges, working with their hydraulic arm to move and stack objects and deconstruct a challenging puzzle box.
Tuesday 18 August: www.scienceweek.net.au/event/pop-up-at-darwin-careers-fair-physics-fun-games/marrara
Saturday 22 August. www.scienceweek.net.au/event/pop-up-at-casuarina-square-physics-fun-games
Media enquiries: Kayla Hall, Engineers Australia, [email protected]
What do you think is Australia’s most amazing wildflower? – online
ABC Science wants Australians to discover our hidden “flower power”, the kind you find in botanical gardens rather than hippie communes.
With the help of experts, ABC Science has selected ten flowering plants from across the country.
Not just another banksia or waratah, but blooms from the unsung understory that also do something unbelievable. These ten wildflowers are more than just a pretty face; each one hides a surprising superpower. The public will decide which is the most amazing.
Voting to decide Australia’s most amazing wildflower will start just before National Science Week in August, with the winning bloom announced on Friday August 21 in a live broadcast on Radio National.
The shortlist:
- Bladderwort (Utricularia) – Traps and digests insects inside tiny floating “bladders”
- Star flower (Calytrix) – Changes colour like a ‘traffic-light’ to direct pollinators
- Flannel flower (Actinotus) – Blooms from bushfire ashes like a floral phoenix
- Flying duck orchid (Caleana) – Traps insects for pollination and looks like a duck!
- Mulla mulla (Ptilotus) – Thrives, and flowers, in tough, hot arid environments
- Murnong/yam daisy (Microseris) – Provided a significant year-round nutritious food for Indigenous people
- Richea scoparia – Survives extreme cold and feeds snow skinks
- Creamy candle (Stackhousia) – Looks like a candle and emits a sweet fragrance at night
- Triggerplant (Stylidium) – Hits insects with pollen using a catapult-like trigger
- Underground orchid (Rhizanthella) – Lives underground and looks like a tiny demogorgan.
Wednesday 5 August – Friday 21 August. To find out more and vote, go to www.abc.net.au/wildflowers.
For interviews with Dr Ann Jones, contact Rob Caulley, ABC Publicity, [email protected].
About National Science Week
National Science Week is Australia’s annual opportunity to meet scientists, discuss hot topics, do science and celebrate its contribution to our lives. Science drives economic and social change – from safe and nutritious food to reducing cancer deaths; from smart phones to AI; from under Antarctica’s ice floes to distant planets.
First held in 1997, National Science Week has become one of Australia’s largest festivals. Last year about 3 million people participated in more than 2,500 registered events and activities.
National Science Week 2026 runs from Saturday 15 to Sunday 23 August. Event details can be found at www.scienceweek.net.au.
National Science Week is proudly supported by the Australian Government, alongside key partners Questacon, CSIRO, the Australian Science Teachers Association, and ABC Science.
