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Newsletter: SPROUTING GREATNESS

SEEDS TO SCENERY & Science Week

It’s never too early to write a poem about science!  This year’s Science Rhymes poetry blog will be called AUSSIE FLORA-VERSE. Did you know some plants remember things?

Your successful poems about PLANTS (flora) will be published in time to celebrate Science Week (15th to 23rd August) and Australian Poetry Month. Download the pdf SEEDS TO SCENERY to help you get started and check out previous Science Week poetry blogs too, if you have time!

THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL

At least six of my Science Rhymes have been embraced by Educational Publishers in India to date. As textbooks ask many comprehension questions, when I received the Amity University Press request to include The Beauty of it All in their Year 7 School Textbook (Hummingbird 7), I blogged about my own thoughts on this poem. 

Although Amity had agreed to supply me with a copy of the book, it didn’t arrive. When I emailed them earlier this month, they kindly sent images of the relevant pages. I was flattered to discover the student “homework” instructions included reading three more of my FAMOUS poems!

BRANCHING OUT

This year, I’ve been supporting Australian Children’s Poetry and its new Curator, children’s poet Linda Davidson. Helping with the Poetry Prompt blogs, I’ve been asking various artists and illustrators if they are happy to give ACP permission to feature one of their artworks as a Picture Prompt. This results in each artist having a few poems written about their art!

I’ve also branched out into non-rhyming short-form poetry! We hope having picture prompts and calls for simpler poetry formats (rather than predominantly rhyme) will encourage more submissions from children (via parents or teachers). These are certainly worthy ways of improving writing and literacy skills. And seeing your poem being shared with others is a wonderful feeling.

My first Short-Form Mid-Month Poetry Prompt on ACP was the Nonet. I first encountered these during an online course on Science Communication through Poetry with UK’s Edinburgh Napier University last year.

Bookshop

Thank you for your continued interest in Science Rhymes and for reading to the end!  Previous Newsletters were sent out to friends, associates and contributors via MailChimp.  It is now distributed via direct email (or JetPack subscribers). 

Newsletter #42 will be out in September 2026.

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Category: Newsletters

Posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 at 9:22 am.

World Poetry Day

When it comes to relationships with poetry, at school, I had a preference for the sassy bravado of Tam O’Shanter, courtesy of Robert Burns, rather than English words worth of wooing and woe-ing. Later, I discovered the deceptively simple enchantments of Poet Laureat Norman MacCaig, yet another Scottish poet.

Having one of my own poems held within The Scottish Poetry Library (alongside these masters), is an uncanny honour, and celebration is appropriately timed for World Poetry Day! 

Being included in the anthology, POINTS OF INTERSECTION: SCIENCE AND POETRY, is one of the many rewards resulting from a 4-week course, conducted by Professor Sam Illingworth at Edinburgh Napier University last October. Participants appraised each other’s work, undeniably proving poetry and science really can belong together.

Norazha’s “We Only See the Dead” makes my head spin, every time I read it. The complexities of time and space are given to us full blast (a bit like a rollicking adventure with Tam O’Shanter). Courtney’s “Northern Lights” is contrastingly peaceful and a little bewitching (which is more of a Norman MacCaig craft). I simply planted some “Sturdy Mulga Trees” in The Scottish Library. I wonder if anyone will notice them or appreciate their amazing Australian significance?

We Only See the Dead by Norazha Paiman

Andromeda’s light takes 2.537 million years to reach us, which means the photons hitting your retina tonight left when Australopithecus was learning to walk upright. You’re not seeing Andromeda. You’re seeing its ghost from the Pliocene, and it’s probably already collided with us by now, in real-time, in the present we’ll never know.

Betelgeuse sits 548 light-years away in Orion’s shoulder, already exploded maybe, already supernova, the shockwave expanding while we’re still looking at a star from 1476—before Columbus, before the printing press—when the light from its death finally arrives we’ll call it “breaking news” like we witnessed it.

Even Proxima Centauri is 4.24 light-years off. Obama’s first term is just arriving there now, and if they’re looking back they’re seeing us in 2016, still innocent, still thinking certain things won’t happen, and neither of us can warn the other because causality moves at the speed limit and we’re all shouting into the past.

We won’t see it. We won’t witness it. Everything you see is obituary, every star a time capsule you can’t open until it’s irrelevant, and the farther you look the deeper into graveyard you go.

Look up: that’s not the sky. That’s a time-lapse of extinction we call beautiful because we don’t know what we’re really seeing.

We only see the dead. We see only the dead. The dead, only the dead.

Northern Lights by Courtney Williams

An Icelandic car park, 1 AM.
Shaking screens capture particles
as they sweep across the sky.
Spellbound by solar ghosts.
All too soon it ends,
leaving us cold,
weary, but
starry
eyed.

These Sturdy Mulga Trees will feature as part of this year’s Science Rhymes / National Science Week call for poems on the theme SEEDS TO SCENERY.

Wishing you an enchanting WORLD POETRY DAY on 21st March!

Celia

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Category: Blog

Posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2026 at 9:25 am.

SEA WEEK Special

Celia’s poem DIVE LIKE A WHALE was first published in The School Magazine’s Touchdown #5 2025. Illustrated by Rosemary Fung.

Get ready to dive into SEA WEEK (Saturday 28th February to Sunday 8th March)!  To celebrate, we’re sharing poems and illustrations from SCIENCE RHYMES IN THE SEA via Celia Berrell’s Science Rhymes.

Facebook Poem Schedule:

  • Saturday 28th February – this blog post
  • Sunday 1st March – THE SEAHORSE
  • Monday 2nd March – LIVING GLASS JEWELS
  • Tuesday 3rd March – BRAINLESS SNOOZERS
  • Wednesday 4th March – SHERIFF SHARK
  • Thursday 5th March – IMMORTAL JELLYFISH
  • Friday 6th March – STINKY-NOSE DUMPLINGS
  • Saturday 7th March – DIVE LIKE A WHALE
  • Sunday 8th March – an invitation

What inspired the book SCIENCE RHYMES IN THE SEA?

Seaside holidays as a child
Salty lips after a swim
Seeing a sand crab leave its shell
Missing out on studying Marine Biology at Uni
Living on Lizard Island
Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef
Plunging beneath a Manta Ray
Circling inside a shoal of silver fish
Cruising with a baby shark
Discovering my talents as a Science Rhymes poet
Visiting Cairns Aquarium in 2018
Creating the blog OCEANS OF POETRY for National Science Week 2020

Celia visiting Cairns Aquarium 2018

Do you have a love of the sea? If you can put it into words, perhaps you could write a poem for Australian Children’s Poetry.

BOOK REVIEWS

Since the Print-on-Demand paperback and e-book version became available on Amazon, I’ve received some encouraging emails.

Alyce F said: “I came across Science Rhymes in the Sea on Amazon, and I was instantly enchanted. There’s something profoundly magical about the way your words turn science into song and transform learning into pure delight. Each poem feels like a shimmering current—carrying readers from the laughter of baby sea turtles riding the Gulf Stream to the awe of the immortal jellyfish, and finally to the haunting beauty of the ocean’s deepest mysteries.

Your work doesn’t just teach children about marine life; it helps them feel it. I could sense your deep respect for the sea and its hidden worlds in every line. Through rhythm and rhyme, you’ve created something rare—a poetic bridge between curiosity and knowledge that reminds readers, young and old, how alive and wondrous our planet truly is.”

Michael C said: “The way you pack real marine science into fun, rhythmic verse making quirky facts stick while sparking curiosity—is pure magic. Paired with Elijah Roby’s ambient, immersive illustrations that capture the ocean’s glow and mystery, it’s a perfect blend that makes learning feel like play. As a longtime fan of science poetry (your contributions to CSIRO’s Double Helix magazine and The Science Rhymes Book have inspired so many young minds), this feels like a natural, beautiful evolution—celebrating the ocean’s wonders with that signature clever, educational rhyme you do so well.”

I wonder what YOU would say (with the help of AI maybe)?

Have a fabulous SEA WEEK with a splash of poetic inspiration.

Best Wishes,

Celia (with Elijah)

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Category: Blog

Posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2026 at 8:14 am.

Newsletter: START WITH A SPARK!

Homely Neanderthals  by Celia Berrell

Home is where the heart is. 
For modern man, it’s true. 
But many ancient peoples 
preferred to wander through.

Nomadic life was simple. 
No need to tidy up! 
Scavengers would follow 
and eat our waste and stuff.

Neanderthals got chilly. 
Fire changed how they behaved. 
Four hundred thousand years ago 
they’d set up homes in caves.

Home was where their HEARTH was. 
We’ve found their signs and clues. 
Still, many Homo sapiens  
like wandering – do you?

Fire facts: Oldest fire-making humans & What is Fire? 

 

PROJECT – AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S POETRY

Australian Children’s Poetry is working towards including quality poems by Australian Children as well as adult authors. Teachers & Homeschool Parents can submit up to THREE best poems in response to a Monthly Prompt. Enter your email address under the Follow Blog banner to receive Monthly Prompts and poems.

Successful poems will appear as: POEM TITLE by FIRST NAME ONLY at SCHOOL NAME & State/Territory. ACP will not publish or correspond on poems that are not submitted via an adult’s email address.

By submitting, parents & teachers are:

  1. Confirming this is the ORIGINAL CREATION of the author(s).
  2. Assuring us AI wasn’t used and nothing was plagiarised.
  3. Giving us permission to publish and archive any accepted poem in the ACP online format.
  4. Still retaining copyright for the author(s).

Send your submissions to Linda Davidson at: 
ozchildrenspoetry@gmail.com

 

FEEDSPOT has listed its 35 BEST CHILDREN’S POETRY BLOGS for 2026.

AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S POETRY is #17 & SCIENCE RHYMES is #19!

 

Remember, remember the Fifth of November

That’s when we celebrated the completion of the book SCIENCE RHYMES IN THE SEA at CAIRNS AQUARIUM. Dr Hilary Whitehouse (my JCU mentor), Diane Finlay (SCBWI FNQ coordinator), Celia Berrell (author), Sokar Philpot (project mediator), Sharne Lilly (project-made-possible coordinator) & Elijah Roby (illustrator) recited their chosen poems to the fish!

 

FANGS FOR THE VIPERFISH

Elijah found a model of the weird and wonderful Viperfish at the aquarium. He admitted these silvery drawings had taken a long time to perfect, but had given him the greatest pleasure. Do you like their scarily sparkly toothy grins?

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting E.T. At Cairns Aquarium by Kaya 2018

This porcupine fish can change personality 
From small, shy and cute, to puffed-up all-angrily. 
Oh, E.T. you have such big eyes, 
they make it so hard to say goodbye. 
I wonder, have you met E.T? 
If not, I think you’d better see me! 
This porcupine fish melts hearts every day. 
A Diodon Globefish and species of ray. 
Oh, E.T. you have so much love to share, 
In Cairns Aquarium, we can’t help but stare.

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Category: Newsletters

Posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2026 at 2:59 pm.

HELGOLAND: on reading this book by Carlo Rovelli

Sometimes it’s difficult to get to the bottom of things.  We yearn to discover simple answers to enigmatic questions.  And theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli gently shows us why that doesn’t really work … and … perhaps that wasn’t the right question to begin with.

Carlo’s story is anchored around Werner Heisenberg’s moments of quantum reckoning whilst on the windswept, surf-scarred rocky island of Helgoland in the North Sea.  That was a hundred years ago, in 1925.  But casting off from those dangerous shores, Carlo Rovelli takes us on a fascinating tour of science and philosophy which ends up at the beginning of an amazing revelation, linking quantum mechanics to Buddhism and the relationship of all things.

National Science Week 2025 celebrated the tiny world of the quantum realm and I chose to re-read Carlo Rovelli’s Helgoland as part of my personal celebrations.  If I get round to reading this book again in a couple of years, I know I will still find more twisting treasures.  Rich gems that are interpreted both philosophically and theoretically.  Within the pages of this book, my quantum ignorance melts away into a warm friendly feeling where I can safely and poetically dive below the frustrations of Heisenberg’s exasperatingly challenging Helgoland rocks.  Take a deep breath and join me!

One Hundred Quantum Years  by Celia Berrell

Are we not like children still?
Curious to know what’s inside?
Inside the wrapping paper of a gift;
inside the heart of a treasured friend;
inside the mind of someone admired?

What is revealed might change our lives.
Show us the key to existence.
Yet, like Russian dolls inside
Russian dolls, inside Russian dolls,
the smallest reveals only emptiness.

Knock on a door, a sturdy door
that bars our way with atoms.
Atoms don’t listen for texture or gloss.
Atoms don’t know about hard and soft.
An atom is mostly emptiness.

The more we bore down
going smaller and smaller,
the simpler relations must surely be.
But within those relations, Carlo Rovelli
reveals we have found a quantum key.

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Category: Blog

Posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 at 1:37 pm.

ITTYVERSE

A big THANK YOU to all the adults and students who have shared their little creations, either as POEMS or HAIKU, for this year’s National Science Week!

POEMS:

The smartest things are smaller than me  by Aaron

I looked down at an ant today,
I tried not to hurt her or get in her way. 
She carried crumbs five times her size 
That’s strength that wins a science prize!

I watched her walk a dirt track,
Then disappear and not come back. 
Do ants have maps inside their heads? 
Or maybe science books in their beds?

I learned they talk with smells, not words, 
(Not like us or dogs or birds). 
They sniff the ground to say “Go here!” 
Their tiny brains are pretty smart and clear!

They’re smaller than my little toe, 
They build huge cities down below! 
And now I think, just maybe, possibly, 
The smartest things are smaller than me.

Aaron is 8 and lives near Victor Harbour in SA.  He is a home-school student and mother, Emily, helped him submit this poem.

 

Small but big  by Bella & ChatGPT

Sand is smaller than my hand, 
Tiny bits all over the land. 
It’s at the beach, between my toes, 
Where water splashes and summer goes.

The beach is part of Earth so wide, 
With shells and waves and crabs that hide. 
No sand? No beach to jump and run, 
No beach? No summer, no sunny fun!

No fun means Earth feels kind-a flat, 
No giggles, games, or beachy hats 
So even though it’s small and round, 
Sand’s the biggest thing I’ve found!

Bella is a Year 1 student at Crestwood Public School in NSW.  She said that she really enjoyed the process of writing this poem with the help of ChatGPT.  She gave the AI specific instructions and edited its response.

 

Small Tiny Nano in our World  from Buttercups Northbridge Childcare & Early Learning Centre, Perth WA

Teacher Rista Chutoo-Bereba organised this delightful presentation by Adaline, Hugo, Amelia, Margot, Olivia, Ruby & Kayhan.  Their words are: SMALL LIKE A BALL BUT NOT VERY TALL; TINY LIKE A BABY THAT’S QUITE FUNNY MAYBE; NANO LIKE THE SAND TOO SMALL TO HOLD IN THE HAND.

 

Amazing Little Critters  by Toni Newell

Although very tiny 
They’re strong as can be 
Can lift many, many times 
the weight of their body. 
Classified as insects 
They live in colonies 
Are known to be social 
But have their enemies 
Ladybugs, anteaters 
Fungi, moth butterflies 
Spiders, other ants 
And humans in disguise 
Using different pesticides and 
Natural remedies 
To neutralize their presence 
Affects their colonies. 
I admire the little critters, 
Who have their roles to play 
In our planet’s biodiversity 
Which the negatives outweigh.

Toni Newell is a regular contributor to Australian Children’s Poetry.

 

Soldier Crabs  by Linda Davidson

The Soldier crabs are marching 
at the edge of the sandy low tide. 
An army of purple and orange 
surprisingly blends in to hide. 
Their ranks don’t appear to be organised 
as they crawl across muddy sand. 
Their small round bodies swarm together 
as they scramble over water and land.

Linda Davidson has poems published in Australian Children’s Poetry and Dirigible Balloon.

 

The Food Chain  by Erica Chester

Every day, out in the wild 
The animals, both fierce and mild 
Need to eat for en-er-gy 
From a big whale to a small bee

Not burgers, like you and your brother 
No, they prefer to eat each other 
It may seem quite inhumane 
But it’s just part of the food chain

Imagine a proud wedge-tailed eagle 
Eating a king brown, so regal 
King browns like to eat thornbills 
Who catch small insects with their skills

They feast upon the grass and seeds 
To meet their nutritional needs 
And when the eagle’s time is done 
He decomposes in the sun

His body feeds the soil and ground 
Where many grasses can be found 
So here we are, back at the start 
The natural world sure is smart.

Erica has poems published in Dirigible Balloon.

 

Call of the Beach  by Meryl Brown Tobin

She walks along the beach, 
white sand beside blue sea. 
It calls to her each morning, 
its beauties she must see. 
She stops to pick up shells, 
exquisite and sublime, 
each one a unique miracle
of colour, weight, design.

Tracks beyond the water 
tell of visitors overnight–– 
of dogs and birds and foxes; 
overhead a pelican in flight. 
She follows it along the beach–– 
on a mudflat stretch it lands. 
Though it stays well out of reach 
it’s as if it’s in her hands.

In time the bird flies off 
and she turns and heads for home. 
The sun is out and warm it is 
so she walks barefoot in foam. 
The squish of sand between her toes, 
she runs and splashes wide. 
The salt tang in her mouth and nose, 
she laughs as she beats the tide.

Meryl Brown Tobin is a featured author in Australian Children’s Poetry.

 

The River of Future Science  by Dr Sukarma Thareja & Celia Berrell

Silver Nanowires (AgNWs)

Tiny silver nanowires have 
got some exciting properties, 
unfurling applications for 
many advanced technologies.

Attacking bacteria and viruses, 
they’re good for making medical masks; 
enhancing sterile surfaces; 
ideal for many medical tasks.

Conducting electricity, 
absorbing, also scattering light 
will make them touch-screen wonders 
and an energy-storage delight.

With potential for synapse-like signalling 
this next trait might seem strange. 
We think networks of silver nanowires 
could hold memory like a brain.

 

HAIKU

Spider’s Web  by Amahli (Mandurah Baptist College, WA)

A gleaming moonbeam 
Like a tailor’s sewing room 
Clad in silver threads

 

Mushrooms  by Mia (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Small, tiny, round, brown 
Infests my garden with spores 
But are beautiful

 

Hermit Crab  by Felicity (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Tiny, brave and strong 
Watch him scurry in the sand 
Pretty little shell

 

Coral  by Katelyn (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Life underwater 
An upside-down jellyfish 
Algae gives colour

 

Little Sea Bunny  by Angela (Mandurah Baptist College)

Little sea bunny 
Tiny, small, slimy and cute 
Microscopic pet

 

Water Bear  by Destiny (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Tiny but mighty 
Indestructible you are 
Mighty water bear

 

Seagull  by Paige (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Standing on a post 
Gracefully flying around 
Perfect white feathers

 

The Hungry Crab  by Evie (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

A small, hungry crab 
Scurries to grab a poor fish 
And gobble it down

 

Ants  by Jake (Mandurah Baptist College WA)

Marching through the mound 
Ants are working very hard 
Keeping the nest clean

Thanks Teacher-Librarian Clare Laverty at Mandurah Baptist College for sharing these lovely little Haiku from your students.

 

Sandra Winzar’s students at Hilder Road State School learnt about the recent Algal Blooms which have caused devastation along the South Australian coast.  Below are six very touching haikus from her class.

Ocean Algal Blooms  by Alyssa (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Warming oceans shift 
Algal blooms silently spread 
Death has washed ashore

 

Silent Killer  by Stacey (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Cream bloom litters tide 
Life and light begin to slide, 
Beneath all have died

 

Waves of Death  by Samuil (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Creamy clouds rain death 
Making sure to take your breath 
Bodies wash ashore

 

Toxic Foam  by Isabelle & AI (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Temperatures rising 
Creatures wash up on the sand 
Blooms of toxic foam

 

Grieving Shores  by Bella & AI (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Temperatures rising 
Toxic yellowness blooming 
Silent shores grieving

 

Whispers of Death  by Dylan, Archer & AI (Hilder Road SS, Brisbane QLD)

Poisons spread through seas 
Fish suffering and dying 
Foam whispers of death

There are concerns around how this large algal bloom will impact the Giant Australian Cuttlefish who lay their eggs in these South Australian waters each August.

 

Little Flea  by Sue Warren (Redcliffe QLD)

Tiny hopping flea 
If you please, do not bite me 
Take a flying leap!

Teacher-Librarian, Sue Warren, recently wrote a series of teacher’s notes for a forthcoming non-fiction kid’s book on parasites.  One of the exercises is to write a Haiku … so she did!

 

Schrodinger’s Cat  by Tom Middlebrook & ChatGPT (Balmoral VIC)

Cat in the closed box—
is it purring, or silent?
Both, until we look

 

Peacock Spider  by Celia Berrell

Tiny spiders dance –
Snazzy tail and jerky legs
Catch a female’s eye

 

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Category: Blog, Your Science Poems

Posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2025 at 11:00 am.

Farewell Double Helix

Part of my Science Rhymes “REASON TO BE”,
has sadly and emptily LEFT ME!

 

For all the fabulous people I knew but never met at CSIRO’s Double Helix and Scientriffic, thank you for the 15 years of poetry prompts, inspiration and amazing science articles!  

DOUBLE HELIX celebrated 10 years of publication with its final Issue #80 in June 2025.

Writing Fridays friends help celebrate DH#80 finale.

 

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Category: Blog

Posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 at 5:03 pm.

50 Ways to Die in Space book review

Written by Eileen O’Hely and illustrated by Nico O’Sullivan
HAWKEYE PUBLISHING April 2025
ISBN 9781923105416

Giggling loudly in the library, I wanted to interrupt strangers and say “You HAVE to look at this – it’s so FUNNY and CLEVER!”

The graphic novel, 50 Ways to Die in Space written by Eileen O’Hely and illustrated by Nico O’Sullivan must have been created especially for me – and probably you too. It’s full of ACTION, SPACE and SCIENCE. All explained in a hilarious way without using too many words.  And that makes it extra clever and fabulous fun.

The book begins with one of our favourite poems.  Then, ludicrous surprises such as sharks, snakes and smithereens show up, just where you’d least expect them.  The gruesome parts about dying are made all the more grotesquely funny by Nico’s captivating illustrations.  By the end of the story, I felt so joyously connected with these two characters, I gave them both names – Putty and Gruff.

At one point, Putty says to Gruff “I did not know that. You know, some of the things you say are quite informative”.  And that’s what I thought too! 

I wonder what names you’ll choose for these two comical characters?

 

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Category: Blog

Posted on Monday, February 24th, 2025 at 2:53 pm.

CONSILIENCE: Flowing Into Indigo

Following UK Science Communicator and Science Poetry blogger Professor Sam Illingworth, I’m inspired by his blog The Poetry of Science, his pedagogy philosophy and love participating in some of his science-poetry challenges.  We first connected via a Skyku project to raise awareness about the health of our atmosphere.  This resulted in my audio recording of a Haiku about how thin the Earth’s layer of air is being broadcast on a radio show in USA! 

Since the online journal CONSILIENCE began in 2020, I have been submitting Science Rhymes to this peer-review science-poetry-arts initiative.  This year, I submitted Flowing Into Indigo for issue #16, themed COLOUR.  At the height of my COVID-19 confinement and brain-fogged state, I learnt that this poem had been accepted for publication on the provision that I also submitted an adequate scientific explanation for the poem, written in my own words (and not via reference links).  That was harder to do than writing the actual poem!

Flowing Into Indigo features in my next book SCIENCE RHYMES IN THE SEA.  I hope to publish it in 2025 as an Amazon print-on-demand book and Kindle eBook.  Elijah Roby has completed all the insightful monochromatic illustrations, cleverly pacing the light-down-to-darkness ambience while revealing highlights for each poem as we descend through every layer of the ocean.  Dr Jordan Pitt has provided a wonderful Foreword, connecting with his research on ocean waves and sea ice.  Another author I admire, Dr Blake Chapman has generously shared her words for the book’s back cover.

The Consilience Journal is something I hope older readers of this website may appreciate.  Regardless of how a poem affects you on reading (be it inspired & amazed or befuddled but curious), after each poem, all is revealed in the author’s best attempt to explain their work.  With 80 academic volunteers to help with the reviewing process, this is a beautiful way to dive into a pot-luck of poems and scientific revelation.

Flowing into Indigo by Celia Berrell

A rainbow of light-waves
can power right through
the top layers of water
to brighten our view
of colourful coral
and cute fishes too
in dazzling hues
of red, yellow, blue.

But these pigments get drowned
as we dive further down.
Yellows turn grey
and reds turn to brown
as part of that rainbow
abandons dive’s quest
‘til only the indigo
blues dive the best.

This Sunlight Zone goes
for two hundred metres.
By then all those colours
are losing their features.
An indigo world
of deep monochrome
then welcomes us to
the Twilight Zone.

The Science

Sunlight can generate rainbows whenever its white light is refracted or spread out into its various light wave frequencies. The electromagnetic energy we identify as red has the longest wave frequency of the rainbow colours (ROYGBIV). Blues and violets have the shortest. (Light waves which are either shorter or longer than these certainly exist, but we can’t actually see them with our own eyes). When sunlight travels down through increasingly deepening water, we can liken the longer red wavelengths to long-legged adults, powerfully striding down into the water. In contrast, the blue-violet wavelengths are more like little kids, happily running round, bumping into molecules. They’re taking lots of tiny steps as though they have energy to spare. Red wavelengths are the first to falter. When every stride needs to be enormous, they quickly run out of impetus.

Pigments and surfaces we identify as red are absorbing the other wavelengths of visible light and predominantly reflect only the red ones. As red frequency light waves diminish, this colour begins to dull, turning brown and eventually appearing black, since all other colour frequencies were already being absorbed. A bright yellow fish could still be reflecting a proportion of white light, along with specific yellow frequency light waves. Still, as the number of yellow-frequency light waves become less, and the intensity of light in general fades, that yellow colour dulls and begins to appear grey. It too would eventually darken to black, far enough down the water column. Even in bright sunshine and clear waters, we don’t expect to detect natural colours from sunlight past 200 metre depths. There is either a faint glimpse of light from those remaining short-frequency blue-violet light waves (also known as indigo) or complete darkness. We refer to this monochromatic region as the Twilight Zone.

The Poet

Celia Berrell’s Science Rhymes regularly feature in CSIRO’s Double Helix magazine & Australian Children’s Poetry. They have been published in school textbooks around the world. The Science Rhymes Book (Jabiru 2018) has 70 scientifically accurate poems relevant to the primary science curriculum. The Science Rhymes website shares student poems, promoting Australia’s National Science Week each August. Poems in anthologies include Penguin DK’s A World Full of Poems for ‘Peace by Piece’ and The Emma Press’s The Bee is not Afraid of Me for ‘True Bugs are Suckers’.

 

For those still reading, I particularly enjoyed Vaishnavi Shridhar’s Flying Kaleidoscope about butterfly wings from this issue of CONSILIENCE.

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Category: Blog, Blog

Posted on Friday, November 8th, 2024 at 4:19 pm.

The Great Australian Science Book: REVIEW

I suppose you could simply read “The Great Australian Science Book”, but in many ways it’s too busy and too exciting for that.  This is a book that invites us to explore!

The introduction is fabulously friendly.  Professor Luke O’Neil creates profound prose in a nutshell.  Combined with Linda Fahrlin’s illustrations, each double page is like a treasure map to be examined and poured over like a pioneer.  Each one rewards us with giggles and science gold.

I took my time with this book.  Part romp, part reference, it is definitely something I’ll enjoy returning to for a BIG PICTURE view on any of the carefully categorised science topics within.

I just got a bit miffed by a few Irish issues.  You see, this book started out as “The Great Irish Science Book”.  CSIRO have lovingly adjusted it to include plenty of worthy Australian content.  There’s a large image of the Earth on p18, proudly displaying the Australian continent.  But every other depiction of our planet shows the other side – from a smidgen of the Americas, through Europe, Africa and Asia.  A tiny Earth or two, from an Australian perspective, would have been appreciated.

On page 57, an image used to parody how DNA and RNA use different languages to communicate is of a book of IRISH TALES.  English versus Irish was fine for the Irish version of this book, but perhaps we could have seen an image of a book cover from a language closer to our Australian home please?  And what on earth do the letters GAA stand for at the top of page 79?  It turns out to be GAELIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION!  I’m sure there would be a suitable Australian comparison available.

However, these are just slights or possible oversights.  I really loved how the science on climate change is presented as a quiz; how key science terms are in shouty contrasting colours, so we can’t lose them; how there are plenty of little jokes and witticisms within the illustrations and text.  This is a very cheerful book about almost-everything-we-need-to-know science.  I hope it will brighten, heighten and highlight more than just one day or one science concept for you, as it has for me.

 

Category: Blog

Posted on Monday, September 16th, 2024 at 3:02 pm.

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Celia Berrell
PO Box 830
Hervey Bay QLD 4655

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