$10 000 - NATA Young Scientists Awards 2008

NATA Young Scientists Award - 2008 kicks off again during November 2007 for next year. The award is designed to raise awareness of NATA's activities, an interest in science, as well as an interest in careers in science for primary schools.

The NYSA award is open to public and private schools, throughout Australian states and territories.

Teachers of year 5 and 6 classes are encouraged to plan the activity as part of their classroom work in science.

The NYTA asks entrants to conduct their own class/team investigation with their teacher. Students are requested to write an initial summary of 300 words to describe their investigation.

Finalists are chosen on the basis of their initial summary and are then invited to prepare a more detailed scientific poster to describe their class or class teams scientific investigation.

Two prizes, totalling $10,000 in science equipment are available to the first and second prize winning schools, first prize is $6,000 in science equipment for the winning school and second prize $4,000.

Online entries will be received from November 2007. Entries close on Thursday 7 August 2008.

Download an information flyer for your school notice board from NATA's website at: http://www.nata.asn.au/go/nata-young-scientists-award

Finalist's comments on NYSA 2007

First place winners Badgingarra Public School, WA's teacher Allan Whittome said, "The boxes arrived and we have just unpacked them - WOW, this is incredible. We can not thank you enough. Such a fantastic prize the kids are stunned. I'll send you some pics of them unpacking. I just can't believe how lucky we are."

Second Prize winning school, Mt Blowhard Victoria's teacher Mrs Fox said, "We used some of our equipment for the first time today - real beakers and containers and not the usual jars, and Petri dishes rather than saucers. Thankyou for the overwhelming prize and the fabulous support for our little school. There's just about everything we could possibly have hoped for in those boxes. Incidentally, the first box we opened (at random) contained the *light equipment! Science is buzzing all over Ballarat and word is getting around about NATA. Please extend our gratitude and thanks to all the people involved in this."

*Note: Mt Blowhard's entry was based on an experiment on light rays.

"NATA deserves recognition for sponsoring these awards and encouraging young minds to achieve in science. It has been both a privilege and fun to participate in the award and we look forward to next year's competition". Teacher of GATS Science club of finalist school, Dundas Public School, NSW, Cindy Walker.

Award Guidelines

Who can enter:

Participation is open to each class of students currently enrolled in years (equivalent to) years five and six in primary schools in all Australian States and Territories.

Rules of the NATA Young Scientists Award

Each participating school will submit only ONE entry - judged by the school/or teacher's panel to be the best.

Entries must include a short statement by the class teacher that the brief description was written entirely by the students, and that the activity of the investigation was conducted by the students under supervision of the class teacher/s.

Your teachers will pick the best entry from entries of each competing class from your school and submit it to NATA no later than 5pm on Thursday August 7, 2008.

A special panel of NATA judges will decide on the winning entries.

The judge's choices will be final and no further correspondence on the judge's choices will be entered into.

How to Enter

All entries are to be made online - a form is provided online for this.

Go to the NATA Young Scientists Award competition entry form on the NATA Website. http://www.nata.asn.au/go/nata-young-scientists-award

Announcement of the winners

First and second prize awards will be announced in early October 08.

Two Highly Recommended Certificates will be announced and posted following judging.

Prizes

$10,000 in total prizes - science equipment for the winning schools.

The first prize-winning class will receive $6,000 worth of science equipment for their school, as well as a award certificates. The second prize-winning class will receive $4,000 worth of science equipment for their school.

The first and second prize winners will be notified by post.

Highly commended certificates will also be awarded to two finalists.

Here's what you need to do

Part 1 - Scientific brief

Conduct a scientific investigation of your choice. Then, in the first instance, write a brief online description (on a form provided) of no more than 300 words, clearly describing your scientific investigation, why you chose your investigation, how you conducted it, what you were trying to find out from your investigation, what you thought you might find out, why, what you measured and how you measured the variable, and any other interesting things you have discovered as a result of your activity.

Step 2 - for finalists - produce a scientific poster telling us the story of what you did in your experiment.

More information visit the NATA Young Scientist Award web site.

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