Brisbane-based Street Science travels to Darwin, Alice Springs schools

An explosive Queensland science show is heading to the NT to re-engage kids with STEM and school. Here’s how to get involved.

“When Street Science visits a school community, we can fire everyone up, get their brains ticking and provide access to an educational experience like they’ve never seen before.”

Street Science founder Steven Liddell started the program in 2012 after he noticed kids were becoming disengaged during his time as a high school maths and science teacher in Brisbane.

Mr Liddell said the program typically included an explosive stage show brimming with colourful experiments, followed by a hands-on learning experience where students could replicate what they witnessed with “contextualised learning”.

Street Science founder Steven Liddell said the popular STEM program would travel to the NT in 2024.

Mr Liddell said a team of two Street Science educators would travel to schools in Darwin and Alice Springs in late May or early June, though the team was still locking in which schools it would visit.

“Last year in August, I travelled up to the Northern Territory and I went to Kalkarindji … and did a few days’ work with the community out there,” he said.

“The deputy (principal) had been there for about 10 years and he’d never had anything like this travel through that neck of the woods.”

After receiving incredible feedback from teachers and parents, Mr Liddell decided to take his show on the road in 2024 to reignite kids’ interest in STEM.

The Brisbane-born Street Science has been operating for 12 years.

“The last few years in particular have shown us the importance of science and knowledge with the pandemic,” he said.

“Science has really been the source of truth and when we teach science, we create problem-solvers.

“It doesn’t matter what industry kids are going to get into when they get a bit older and they go into the workforce – when they learn science, they learn these problem-solving skills, which are transferable skills, which are really important.”

Mr Liddell encouraged Territory educators and parents to get in touch about bringing Street Science to schools across the NT.

He said the program also offered ongoing mentoring for teachers and a “resource locker” for teachers to keep tapping into.