CSIRO Tours 2007

Eleven teachers were selected for the CSIRO tours. The group included the following:

Richard Head – CSIRO
Alison Tuckfield – CSIRO
Mark Ward – DECS
Murray Henderson – Birdwood HS
Malcolm Rogers – Cowell AS
Mark Tattersall – Murray Bridge HS
Fiona Haselgrove – Victor Harbour HS
Thangaes Waran – Valley View Secondary School (This is me!)
Danun Manson – Valley View Secondary School
Deb Lascock – Woodville PS
Jo Fisher – Grant HS
Andrew Davids – Maitland AS
Gerald Little – Seaford 6-12
Mark Hodgson – Bansia Park IHS

The tour involved visiting the CSIRO facilities in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. This program is part of the DECS Science and Mathematics Strategy (SCIMAS) 2007, and will allow participating teachers to interact with the CSIRO Preventative Health Flagship’s multidisciplinary research teams covering such areas as mathematics, statistics and data collection and manipulation; physics; biology; chemistry in a hands-on way and in the context of highly developed research laboratories and other facilities.

The CSIRO laboratories to be visited are involved in research in areas such as obesity, bio-prospecting, micro-encapsulation, x-ray crystallography, arrays and SNP work & health data integration and information. Participating teachers will have the opportunity to observe leading edge science research with a view to including relevant elements in school science programs.

Teachers are expected to register on the Twinning Scientists with Teachers website to link with a scientist following this trip.

The tour program is as follows:

Adelaide: Friday, October 5th 2007:
Welcome by Richard Head; Tour of Nutrition Clinic with Peter Royle; ‘Obesity’by Jane Bowen and Grant Brinkworth; Presentation by Ph.D. students Bianca Benassi, Damien Belobrajdic and Karma Pearce; Tour or Proteonomics Centre at Uni of Adelaide with Leah Cosgrove, Kim Fung & Steve Henderson.

Werribee: Monday, October 8th 2007:
Louise Bennet on Bioprospecting; Luz Sanguansri and Marry Ann Augustine on Microencapsulation; Tour of facilities (Food Science Australia).

Parkville: Tuesday, October 9th 2007:
Molecular and Health Technologies: Welcome adn Tour of facilities with Tim Adams; X-ray crystallography laboratory visit with Jose Varghese; Visit Jenny McKimm-Breshkin’s laboratory (Flu Talk) and Lynn Waddington Laboratory (Electron Microscope view of viruses); Presentation on thier career and work by Greg Cola and Tim Adams; visit Evogenix; Kathryn Ellis – AIBL Study.

Canberra: Wednesday, October 10th 2007:
Tour of CSIRO Discovery Centre; preview of the Portrait of a Scientist art exhibition;discussions with Christine O-Keefe; observe schools visit by Year 7 students; Gene Technology workshop by Green Machine.

North Ryde: Thursday, October 11th 2007:

Visit to Molecular and Health Technologies and attend an overview on diagnostics by Trevor Lockett; Lab talk by Peter Molloy on ‘detection diagnostics’; Talk on SNPs by Garry Hannan; Tour of genomic facilities with Glenn Brown; Meeting with Rob Dunne on DNA/informatics/Maths meets Biology; Biomaterials: Implantable Lenses with Meg Evans CMHT; Talk on Intellectual Property with Trevor Lockett.

Brisbane: Friday, October 12th 2007:
Visit e-Health Research Centre; Meeting with Gary Morgan and David Hansen re Health Dataintegration and information; Visit Livestock Industries – Welcome by Suzie Briscoe; Bovine genome by Ross Tellam; Functional Foods by Simone Osborne; Bioinformatics by Sean McWilliam/Brian Dalrymple; Aquaculture by Tom Dixon; Discussion with Chris Prideaux, Deputy Chief CLI.