National Science Week
Australia celebrates National Science Week each year in August. EVERYONE is encouraged to participate. Here, on the Science Rhymes website, we invite you to submit your own rhyming poem about this year’s topic, LOVING LIVING THINGS, or other aspects of science and the environment.
Download the free PDF LOVING LIVING THINGS to help you get started!
When living in Cairns, Celia worked with Teacher-Librarian Annette Ryan at Whitfield State School, creating a POETRY CLUB where year 5 & year 6 students attended lunchtime meetings in the school library to learn some science, recite poems and get inspired to create their own verse about a science topic that captured their imagination. During National Science Week, we held a Poetry Recital where students delivered poems to an audience. Perhaps you could do something similar at your school?
Send your science poem submissions by email to feedback@sciencerhymes.com.au. All your poems will be considered for this year’s Science Rhymes blog, POETRY ZOO, in support of Science Week’s theme of Species Survival – More Than Just Sustainability. THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO Monday 5th August. This invitation is open to everyone (all ages).
This year, supported by SciFest2024, we are accepting poems co-written with AI. Mandurah Baptist College in WA have sent in some poems where two students worked together to co-write a poem with the help of ChatGPT.
We prefer poems that: 1) rhyme 2) are 1-5 verses (up to 20 lines) long 3) contain some science.
And for school-age poets, please send your poem via a parent/adult email address so we can reply.
Previous National Science Week poetry project resources include:
2023 Clever Concepts in Science & BRIGHT IDEAS poetry blog
2022 OUR WORLD WITH GLASS & The Many Faces of Glass poetry blog
2021 Fruit & Vegetable treats & Our Fruit & Veggie-verse anthology
2020 Into the Ocean & Oceans of Poetry
2019 All Things Moon & Moon Poems
2018 Stories of Discovery & Game Changers
2017 Weird Water
2016 Flight
2015 Growing Brighter
Making a Calendar
When does your birthday next fall on a Sunday? How can we find out? Basically we’ll need a calendar!
Keeping track of time and the seasons has been one of man’s serious endeavours for thousands of years. Many different calendar systems have been used by various civilisations. There may be as many as forty different calendars being used around the world at this moment, particularly relating to determining religious dates and festivities. But most modern countries primarily rely on the Gregorian Calendar. Here’s a poem to help you empathise with our Gregorian Calendar system.
