Grab your lab coat as National Science Week kicks off this week, running 15–23 August 2026.

Major Museums from around Australia are responding to the 2026 theme, “Seeds of Science: Nurturing Knowledge for All,”: planting curiosity wherever it can grow.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

SCITECH, Curiosity Unleashed series delivers five free daily virtual excursions for Years 3–6, streamed live on YouTube so that a single class, a whole year group, or an entire school can watch together. Each 20-minute episode opens with a big question and builds into an experiment-filled journey featuring special guests and a myth-busting quiz.

Monday 17 August asks whether plants can feel things, exploring carnivorous plant adaptations with Perth City Farm; Tuesday 18 August investigates whether you can fight fire with fire, looking at the fire triangle and Indigenous fire practices with Deadly Science; Wednesday 19 August asks whether you can catch lightning, diving into weather reporting and static electricity with the Engineering Institute of Technology; Thursday 20 August explores whether sharks can stop swimming, covering shark adaptations and Archimedes’ principle with AQWA; and Friday 21 August closes the week by asking whether humans can fly, unpacking the aerodynamics behind human flight with iFLY. Sessions launch daily at 9am AWST, 10:30am ACST, and 11am AEST, and registration is entirely free, with no cap on how many students or sessions a school can join.

Teachers also receive extension resources and recording access afterward, and the whole series is built specifically to reach regional and remote classrooms.

WA MUSEUM is spreading its program across its regional sites this year, offering something a little different at each. At Boola Bardip in Perth, visitors can hear how Museum scientists identified a previously unrecognised species of ancient koala from fossils (Thursday 20 August), before the museum hosts its Biggest Science Lab Ever! on Sunday 23 August, a large interactive science day run with Curtin University, ECU, The Kids Research Institute, Engineers Australia, and UWA Girls+ in Engineering.

Over at the WA Maritime Museum, a Sunday 16 August “crafternoon” turns rescued ghost nets and ocean plastic into art while teaching visitors about marine conservation work happening along the coast.

Further out, the Museum of the Goldfields in Kalgoorlie hosts a family-friendly Science After Dark on Thursday 20 August, covering everything from geology and robotics to gold panning and VR, while the Museum of Geraldton runs a two-day space-food science program called Plants for Space on 11–12 August, including a Moon Base Challenge and a Space Salad Wet Lab, followed by a session on Saturday 22 August where SKAO radio astronomers bring a table-top radio telescope for visitors to explore the invisible universe.

Down in Albany, the Museum of the Great Southern pairs a public talk on native land snails (17–18 August) with an actual field trip on 18 August, where WA Museum scientists take visitors into Marbelup Nature Reserve to search for new species.

NEW SOUTH WALES

The CHAU CHAK WING MUSEUM  is blending archaeology, art, and mathematics. On Monday 17 August, archaeologists Dr Estelle Lazer and Dr Craig Barker explore how Hollywood recreates the ancient world in Homer Goes to Hollywood, before Tuesday 18 August brings a double header: a lunchtime lecture on how big data and drone technology are being used to fight cultural heritage looting along Jordan’s Dead Sea Plain, followed that evening by Postcards from Antarctica, a night of talks and art from scientists and artists who’ve experienced the continent firsthand. The weekend of 22–23 August wraps things up with a free, family-friendly Science and Maths at the Museum weekend, run in partnership with the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute.

At the AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, the focus is on the ocean. The week kicks off on Friday 14 August with the Valerie Taylor Ocean Protection Prizes award night, themed “Blue World” for 2026, before the museum runs Sydney Science Trail sessions for primary and secondary students across 17–21 August. Four live virtual excursions round out the program between 17 and 20 August, each streamed at 2pm and covering topics from ocean health and eco-action to deep-sea exploration and marine physics.

The AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, meanwhile, on Saturday 15 August starts with its Sydney Science Trail Community Day, hosted by the Surfing Scientist Ruben Meerman and featuring live shows, appearances from resident dinosaur Winny, and a ticketed Science Expo where families can meet scientists from more than 20 STEM organisations.  A beginners’ nature photography workshop runs alongside it.

The museum’s Sydney Science Trail program runs right through 15–23 August in collaboration with the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, giving primary and secondary students the chance to explore climate science and First Nations environmental knowledge.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

The NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA, will host Searching for Life Beyond Earth: Lessons from Antarctica on Tuesday 18 August from 6:30pm. Free but with bookings essential, the event features Professor John Priscu discussing how ecosystems buried beneath Antarctic ice are reshaping scientific thinking about whether life could exist on distant moons like Jupiter’s Europa.

QUESTACON, in its role as the national coordinator of Science Week through the Inspiring Australia Network, is running a program built around seven national ambassadors sharing research stories on topics from electric vehicles and snake bites to bushfire modelling and tracking endangered owls with specially trained dogs.

Locally, the centre hosts the Governor-General’s Design Challenge for schools on 17 August, an Australian Federal Police “takeover” on 22 August, and pop-up Science in the Centres activities at Canberra shopping centres on 15–16 and 22–23 August.

Over at the MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRACY AT OLD PARLIMENT HOUSE, a digital event on Thursday 20 August brings together astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith and playground designer Tessa Grayston to explore the surprising amount of science and engineering behind playground design, delivered in partnership with the free Future You STEM program run through UNSW.

 VICTORIA

MELBOURNE MUSEUM, SCIENCEWORKS and IMAX MELBOURNE are joining forces this year to showcase the work of the Museums Victoria Research Institute, one of the country’s largest museum-based scientific teams. At Melbourne Museum, a panel talk called The Secret Life of Soil features Gardening Australia’s Hannah Maloney discussing the organisms that shape healthy soil, while a hands-on Creative Lab: Seed Stories workshop invites participants to plant native seeds while learning about soil as a living system.

Science on Show gives visitors the chance to meet the researchers behind the museum’s rarely-seen specimens directly. Meanwhile, Scienceworks turns its attention to the stars with a special Galileo Planetarium experience run in collaboration with the Italian Australian Foundation, alongside its ongoing Colour: See the World in a New Light exhibition, a Questacon touring show with 21 interactive exhibits on optics and light.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

The SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM opens the week with: a free launch night on Friday 14 August from 5:30 to 8pm, run in partnership with Inspiring SA, featuring live stage shows, interactive STEM activities, and rare behind-the-scenes access to research and collections spaces normally closed to the public.

Across select dates from 15–23 August, the museum’s Discovery Centre also runs The Dating Game, a game-show-style activity that lets visitors step into the role of a museum curator and learn how scientists date objects using techniques like radiocarbon dating, stratigraphy, and dendrochronology.

QUEENSLAND

QUEENSLAND MUSEUM’S program spread across Kurilpa in Brisbane, Tropics in Townsville, and Cobb+Co in Toowoomba. Highlights at Kurilpa include a citizen-science reptile identification workshop on Saturday 15 August, and the week’s most talked-about event, Bubble, Boil, BANG!, a live chemistry and physics show running from 19 to 22 August that features liquid nitrogen at −196°C and rainbow-coloured flames.

Adults get their own night out on Friday 21 August with Science Night: Amphibians, an evening session with evolutionary biologist Dr Ian Brennan exploring frog and toad evolution. Up in Townsville, Tropics hosts a free talk on Friday 21 August from Jordan Ivey of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, discussing Indigenous-led coral restoration work on the Great Barrier Reef.

And just after the official week wraps, on Thursday 27 August, Kurilpa hosts a lunchtime lecture on how volcanic activity over the past 60 million years helped shape Australia’s rainforests. Daily programming throughout the week includes free drop-in talks, the ongoing Croc! Lost Giants to Living Legends exhibition, and the hands-on SparkLab space, while Cobb+Co in Toowoomba runs early-childhood science sessions and a 13-station interactive Sciencentre.

TASMANIA

In Hobart, the TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY ties its program to the Beaker Street Festival, running a Science Photography Prize exhibition and a student-scientist creative collaboration called CoLab from 5 August through to 6 September. The museum opens its galleries after hours on 14 and 15 August for TMAG After Dark, before hosting a free Family Discovery Day on 16 August with astronomy activities, crafts, and games for all ages, capped off by astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith’s fast-paced public talk, Whistle-Stop Tour of the Universe, that same afternoon.

Further north in Launceston, the QUEEN VICTORIA MUSEUM AND GALLERY  runs a dedicated week-long school program from 17 to 21 August at its Inveresk site. Northern Tasmanian primary classes get a full day of hands-on STEAM learning covering everything from insects to planetarium sessions, though places are limited.