Students advise Chief Scientist to get tech savvy

Get a Facebook page and into the digital age if you want to communicate with youth, say a group of enterprising young students from the National Youth Science Forum.

The group put their ideas to Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Penny Sackett, in a proposal containing a range of new ideas to help promote science to young people and build an understanding of the role of the Chief Scientist in Australia

“The two main areas of focus in the proposal are education and promotion,” said Clare Kim, one of the student authors.

“There’s a massive need to update resources in schools. Some of the science videos that we’re being shown are from back in the eighties! There is a great need to keep science texts up to date with current developments in the scientific world.”

“We also suggested a need to increase web-based advertising to get the youth more engaged in science. We even think we’ve managed to convince Professor Sackett to join Facebook,” she added.

The proposal was handed over to Professor Sackett in front of 150 students during the second last day of the forum.

“I am delighted to be receiving these ideas,” Professor Sackett said.

“We need many different communication strategies to communicate with different groups about science - so getting advice from the younger generation on what they think we should be doing is a great place to start.”

“I take this as a very valuable document with some great expert advice,” she added.