Page 2672 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013
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office of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, UNHCR Canberra, Merici College, South Woden Uniting Church, St John the Apostle Parish Resettlement Committee, 2012 graduates of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the ACT Office of Multicultural, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Soroptimist International Canberra Club, Francesca Beddie, Barbara Bennett, Nick and Vailiki Bogiatzis, Susie Brown, Sean Costello, Marlene Dodge, Sandy Forbes, Barbara Gillies, the Gyngell family, Doug Hynd, Clare Lahiff, Ruth Lin, Sarah-Jane Lynch, Margaret McLeod, David and Tirscha McPherson, Penny Moyes, Jeremy Newman, Anne and David Reese. Margaret Ryan, Richard Smith, Barbara Todd, Carolyn Tweedie-Curnow, John and Joan Warhurst, Donelle Wheeler and Louise Wignall.
I commend all the volunteers at Canberra Refugee Support who have given thousands of hours to support refugees. For more information about CRS, I urge members to visit their website at www.actrefugee.org.au.
Dinosaurs Down Under
Dr Eva Papp
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (5.37): On Saturday morning I had the pleasure of launching the Dinosaurs Down Under travelling paleontological roadshow, which is one of the activities supported under the umbrella of National Science Week. This road show provides clear evidence that the way to inspire children to grow into talented, inquiring adults is to make natural history real, to challenge their thinking and to tell a story. The importance of science in our everyday lives cannot be overemphasised. As we become more and more dependent on new technologies to feed, clothe and house the world’s billions, science will become ever more critical to that task.
How disappointing and perhaps even alarming, then, that the results of an international comparison undertaken last year by the Australian Council for Educational Research that compared tests for reading, maths and science across years 4 and 8 amongst 600,000 students in 45 countries showed that Australia was ranked only 25th out of 45 countries in science at the year 4 level. Perhaps a small comfort is the fact that while we performed poorly at the national level, Canberra students at least led the rest of the states and territories. If we are to improve these results, we need to have children more engaged and teachers better prepared to teach science in an engaging and exciting way to young children. When children can feel and do it themselves, they learn.
The Dinosaurs Down Under travelling exhibition is exactly the sort of interactive learning that children need. With this roadshow we are lucky to have access to 100 years of the Canberra geologist, a mini exhibition which highlights the role of the person, the scientist and the geologist in mapping our state, our country and even Antarctica. I encourage everyone in the Assembly to take time to view this display, which traces the work of the life of a geologist over the last century and how their way of working has changed and why the work they do in tracking our natural history is so important.
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