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The Australian Academy of Science reached new audiences during National Science Week, capping off the annual celebration of science with record crowds attending shows featuring renowned science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and newly elected Fellow, UNSW Professor Veena Sahajwalla FAA.

The Academy kicked off the week with the fourth event of the year in the ‘Science of Us’ series. The event attracted the biggest audience for the series in 2018, with 227 people packing into the Shine Dome to hear Professor Mike Kyrios (Flinders University) and Professor Helen Christensen (Black Dog Institute) talk about mental health and technology.

The Academy then moved to Sydney for the first event in the Academy’s National Speaker Series for 2018, ‘The Science of Sport’. 120 attendees heard four outstanding speakers discuss how sport and science intersect, including the impact of caffeine on sports performance and how we can efficiently fuel our bodies during physical activity.

To finish the week the Academy brought Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and UNSW Sydney Professor Veena Sahajwalla to the National Convention Centre for two shows: high school students during the day and the general public in the evening. A total of 3,267 tickets were booked for both events.

Professor Hans Bachor, Academy Secretary for Education and Public Awareness of Science, said the Academy went boldly where it had not been before.

“The public events on the Friday were amazing, the response of the public, students, teachers were great. When do you have over 1,000 students quietly focusing on one topic, for over an hour? When have you got people waiting for so long to get their book signed? What a buzz,” Professor Bachor said.

The shows were supported by Defence Science & Technology, The Australian National University, The University of Sydney, UNSW Canberra, University of Canberra and the National Convention Centre Canberra.

On social media the Academy reached an audience of almost 26 million on Facebook and over 250,000 (impressions) on Twitter during National Science Week. 

The National Science Week video produced by the Academy was viewed over 130,000 times.
View the National Science Week video 

The Academy video with the biggest reach during National Science Week (over one million views so far) featured APEC ASPIRE Prize winner, Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran.
View the video on Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran.