Australian National Centre For The Public Awareness of Science - Work of The Centre

Work of The Centre

As a UNESCO Centre, CPAS engages with science communication and communicators in the Pacific region and beyond. In partnership with the UNESCO Pacific Office in Apia, Samoa, CPAS has focused on science teaching training and communication in Pacific nations. As well as running a science journalism workshop for Pacific Island journalists in 2001, CPAS followed up in the same year with a science teacher workshop and the first Pacific Science Communication Forum. The UNESCO office in Jakarta invited CPAS to join a mission to Cambodia to conduct a survey to identify and assess the needs of the country with respect to science education in schools and universities. Other activities include joining with UNESCO (Apia) to help in its aims to raise social participation in science in and around the Pacific.

CPAS also established, as a pilot project, the Register of Pacific Scientists, an online database for those involved with Pacific Science to record their details and/or search for other people with similar or complementary interests.

Other activities of CPAS include the presentation of workshops for secondary school science teachers and others in Fiji, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan and New Zealand. A joint teaching program is being developed with the National University of Singapore. In South Africa, CPAS helped to develop a touring hands-on science exhibition and has been invited to work in and with various South African science centres.