The UNE Discovery Voyager team wishes all our readers a very happy New Year and we hope that 2020 brings you lots of amazing discoveries, inspires your curiosity and leads you on exciting adventures.

We had a very fulfilling and exciting 2019, with the Discovery Voyager team traveling over 15,000 kilometres, visiting 92 schools across northern NSW over the 12 month period. This meant we visited and engaged with over 5850 enthusiastic school students for the year!

We also participated in over 17 local, regional and national festivals, taking interactive and hands-on activities to events including:

• The Royal Easter Show (Sydney)
• Minerama Gem and Fossicking Festival (Glen Innes)
• The Sydney Science Festival (Australian Museum, Sydney)
• The Amazing Enviro Race (Tamworth)
• Far Out Science (Armidale)
• Ag-Quip (Gunnedah)

We developed and introduced 6 new activities: Creative Chemistry, Neurobics, Plants, Poop & Pollinators, SMART Farming: From the Ground Up, Busy Bots, and Eating Energetics.

Last year also saw some exciting new and continuing partnerships, with sponsorship by ChemSupply, who generously provided all of our chemicals used this year – including over 884 elephant toothpaste eruptions and 4795 pH tests!

Telstra’s sponsorship of the Voyager program continued into 2019, which included sponsoring our exciting pilot of a new digital technology suite of activities in partnership with UNSW-based digital educational game developers, ARLUDO. Watch out for some exciting new High School digital tech and data-driven activities offered in 2020!

2019 was a truly busy and exciting year for the team, and we are looking forward to what 2020 has in store for us. We’ve already been busy hosting the 2020 ConocoPhillips Science Experience on-campus at UNE, and have been hard at work in the Discovery (“Disco”) Lab developing some new activities around Water Conservation, Astrometrics, Soil Science and Geology, as well as a new Geology Show, which will be ready to go when our school visits kick off in Term 2!

We are happy to report that those schools that had to cancel their Voyager visit in Term 4 last year dur toe bushfires are hitting jackpot with special early visits in 2020. The team are heading off to Corindi, Grafton, McLean and Lismore in early March. But Voyager bookings are available from Term 2 onward.  Check our online calendar here to see current bookings and vacancies.

Click here to have our read of our 2019 Annual Report and discover the impact we’re making in schools. We are grateful to you, our fellow curious citizens, for making our year full of playful experiences in STEAM.

BOOKINGS ARE NOW OPEN FOR 2020. Complement or expand on your classroom exploration and get in quick to secure your spot.