Is the true value of Sydney’s iconic harbour hiding under the surface?

Sydney Harbour is world famous for its brilliant views, its stunning opera house, itsamazing bridge and as a magnet for countless recreational activities. But is its true value and richness invisible to most of us, especially those who will never brave its depths?

Featuring three passionate marine biologists, this public lecture explores the past, present and future of Sydney Harbour and its marine ecological mysteries. It will reveal the extraordinary discoveries being made by researchers from UTS and the Sydney Institute for Marine Science (SIMS) and will consider issues facing the long-term ecological health and well-being of our city’s greatest asset.

When: Thursday 16 August, 6.00pm drinks and canapés for 6.30pm start, concludes 8.00pm
Where: The Great Hall, UTS Building 1, Level 5, 15 Broadway, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE but bookings essential. Email robert.button@uts.edu.au or phone (02) 9514 1734.
More information:  UTS Newsroom website

Featured speakers: Dr Paul Gribben, Professor David Booth and Associate Professor Emma Johnson.

• Dr Paul Gribben is a Research Fellow with the UTS Plant Physiology and Climate Change Cluster and Deputy Director of the SIMS Sydney Harbour Research Program. He is a marine community ecologist investigating the effects of anthropogenic stressors on biodiversity. His research is conducted in a range of ecosystems including mangroves, rocky shores and estuaries.
• UTS marine ecologist David Booth seeks to understand how fishes live and respond to human pressures, including pollution, climate change,fishing and artificial structures.  He is widely published and supervises research students working in harbours, coasts, the deep sea and coral reefs. He maintains a special focus on the influx of coral reef fishes annually into NSW waters and Sydney Harbour.  He hosts a sustainable seafood science assessment panel and is a strong advocate of marine parks and sustainable use of our marine resources.
• Associate Professor Emma Johnston is an Australian Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales and the inaugural Director of the SIMS Sydney Harbour Research Program. She investigates human impacts under the sea and her research is conducted in such diverse environments as Antarctica, the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Harbour.

Photo: Professor Erik Shlogl.

Three artists, Lisa Roberts, Christine McMillan and Nigel Helyer have been working with climate change scientists, exploring  creative articulation of their research work. Data and modelling have been innovatively reinterpreted through artworks, offering  imaginative ways to engage with climate change science.

The installation by Lisa Roberts is ‘Oceanic Living Data: Animated hypotheses, stories, data and iconography’ which was presented at the 2012 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Hobart.

When: All festival;  Thursday 16 –  Sunday 26 August, 10am – 4pm
Where: The Muse, Ultimo TAFE
Tickets: Free, no booking required.

FORUM: SPECIAL EVENT
A chance for the public to meet and hear the artists and scientists. See the live performances.

Artists Lisa Roberts, Christine McMillan, Nigel Helyer and Melissa Smith have been working with climate change scientists, exploring creative articulation of their research work. The core scientific data come from the Climate Change Cluster (C3), University of Technology, Sydney and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

When: Sunday 19th August, 1pm-4pm
Where: The Muse, Ultimo TAFE
Tickets: Free, no booking required

The CSIRO will bring their exciting interactive shows to Ultimo Library for the Ultimo Science Festival!

The Solids, Liquids and Gases show explores changing states with spectacular demonstrations of melting,  expanding and boiling.

When: Thursday 16 August, 4-5pm
Where: Ultimo Library, Cnr Bulwara Rd and William Henry St
Tickets: FREE but booking essential. Book now at www.coslibrary.eventbrite.com

Even toddlers love the idea of science. Sing science nursery rhymes with your little ones. Suitable for babies and toddlers 6 months – 2 years.

When: Thursday 16 August 10am – 10.30am
Where: Ultimo Library, Cnr Bulwara Rd and William Henry St
Tickets: FREE no booking required.

Science shows for kids that make everyday things seem extraordinary. Be surprised by the answers to everyday questions. For 5 years and up.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Times: Weekdays at 12pm, Weekends at 12pm and 2pm
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

It’s 100 years since the brilliant thinker, Alan Turing was born. This display is part of the Cyberworlds Exhibition.

Alan Turing was one of the most important mathematicians and thinkers of the 20th century. In 1936 in a paper aimed at resolving a problem in mathematical logic he created the blueprint for the modern digital computer. He then became one of the most successful codebreakers of the World War II. After the War he participated in building some of the earliest computers and establishing the field of artificial intelligence. Tragically, a conviction over his homosexuality, lead him to depression and suicide.

This display explores how some of Turing’s ideas were formed, and how his work has had a considerable, but probably not widely acknowledged impact on our lives.

When:  All festival; Thursday 16 –  Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition here.

Scinema is a Festival of Science Film brilliantly curated by CSIRO’s Cris Kennedy that brings the arts, science and film together.

SCINEMA TIMETABLE
Thursday 16th August – Science Art + Technology
Friday 17th August – Australian Science
Saturday 18th August – A Climate for Change
Sunday 19th August – Oceans
Monday 20th August – Space and Astronomy
Tuesday 21st August – Critters
Wednesday 22nd August – Space and Astronomy
Thursday 23rd August Climate + Energy
Friday 24th August – The Mind
Saturday 25th August – Space and Astronomy
Sunday 26th August – Australian Science

When: All Festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August: 10am – 4pm
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

Meet scientists in authentic 2D! Get your photo taken with Alan Turing, Albert Einstein and even scientists who are still alive! Search the museum to find the life-sized figures of significant scientists, learn about their work and get a fan photo standing side-by-side.

When: All Festival: 3 – 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo.
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

See important steps in the evolution of the bike, from an early 1800s pedal-less hobby horse to an 1830s treadle-driven bike, a Penny Farthing, and an Australian Olympic Superbike.

See the innovations in steering and gearing, brakes and bearings, and wheels and frames that led to today’s bicycle. Why was the penny farthing’s front wheel so tall? Is human + bicycle (or Cartesian Centaur) really the most efficient of beasts? How did the bicycle change the way we dress and behave? Who should pilot a tandem bike and who should be the back-seat stoker?

This display is inspired by the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, and the theme for National Science Week 2012, ‘Energy Evolution’.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo.
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

Computers are the defining technology of our time. Unlike other machines that are designed to carry out a specialised task, the computer is a general-purpose device. It is a universal machine.

This exhibition looks at the computer and seeks to understand what it is, what it can do, why it was developed, and how it works. Although technologies have changed dramatically this century, what of people’s values, beliefs, hopes and fears in relation to these technologies?

Cyberworlds questions the relationship between people and computers, and their impact on our lives. Are our concerns today so very different from those of a hundred years ago?

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition here.

Experimentations and experimenting both start from everyday experience. Why does the freezer door stick? How does a battery work? What is lightning? This exhibition shows how scientific and technological breakthroughs have answered questions like these and changed many of our ideas about everyday phenomena.

Explore the world, see its strangeness, witness science in action, find out the connections between things and discover by doing. Come and experiment for yourself. Experiment with heat, light, chemistry, electricity and movement.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition here.

What’s it like to live in space? Experience weightlessness in the Zero Gravity Space Lab.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about this exhibition.

EcoLogic has been completely redeveloped to explore one of the world’s hottest topics today: climate change. Discover the science behind global warming and what we can do to prevent it from getting worse.

What will climate change mean for our future? Scientists predict a hotter Earth, more acidic oceans, wilder weather and rising sea levels. See a large model of Sydney’s Circular Quay and Opera House under 10 metres of water, illustrating what could happen if there is a temperature increase of just three degrees Celsius!

Learn how our precious natural resources – like fresh water – are managed. Through a hands-on interactive iPad game, test your ability to manage a town’s water cycle.

Discover what you can do to prevent climate change from getting worse. Explore our ‘eco-friendly’ home, uncover the benefits of recycling, examine the alternative options for generating power, and learn how eating locally-grown food can make a difference.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition here.

Be inspired by these award-winning engineering innovations! Local and international projects on display that received industry awards from the Sydney Division of Engineers Australia in 2010.

Each year, the most outstanding project receives the Bradfield Award, named after John Job Crew Bradfield, the Chief Engineer for metropolitan railway construction and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This year’s Bradfield Award winner is the Crucible Carbon Pyrolysis Process Engineering Prototype, for creating a new technology that produces renewable energy to be used in electricity generators.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition.

This massive steam engine played a key role in the development of the modern world. Built in England during the Industrial Revolution, the Boulton and Watt steam engine may be the most significant technological artefact ever to reach Australia.

It was one of the earliest rotative (wheel-turning) steam engines to be built and is the oldest in existence. The engine is also one of the oldest in the world to still work regularly under steam.

This engine was made by engineer James Watt and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, England. It was installed in Whitbread’s London brewery in 1785 and was used there for 102 years, powering equipment for grinding and lifting malt, stirring vats, and pumping water and beer. Professor Archibald Liversidge, a trustee of the Museum, was in London when the engine was taken out of service and asked that it be donated to the Museum. It arrived in Sydney aboard the sailing ship ‘Patriarch’ in 1888.

James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but he made several important innovations that improved the efficiency of engines and made them useful in a wide range of industries. The innovations that can be seen in the Whitbread engine are: the separate condenser, where steam is condensed (cooled to form water) without cooling the working cylinder; the parallel motion mechanism, which allowed the piston to push the beam up as well as pulling it down; the sun and planet gear, which translates the up-and-down motion of the beam into rotary motion; and the centrifugal governor, which reduces steam supply if the engine begins to run too fast.

As Boulton and Watt engines were prime movers in the Industrial Revolution, this very significant engine represents not just invention and entrepreneurship, but also wealth creation, mass consumerism, great changes in working life, a massive shift in the use of resources, and consequent damage to the natural environment.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about the exhibition here.

For more than 200 hundred years, steam did almost everything … pumped water, drove factories, and powered ships across oceans and ploughs through fields. Steam turbines still provide 90% of our electricity.

The steam revolution shows how steam touched the lives of millions.

Twelve working steam engines, ‘hands-on’ displays, old boilers, videos and much more show how steam engines developed, what they did and how they changed the world.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about this exhibition.

Nine imaginative and daring interactive displays where you can have amazing fun while learning all about nuclear science.

Nuclear matters reveals how many things in everyday life, including ourselves, are slightly radioactive. Fundamental questions as what is radiation and how is it produced are answered. The exhibition also examines the many applications of nuclear technology from medical diagnosis and the treatment of cancer, to determining the structures of materials to generating power. Also displayed are materials used to shield workers from radiation, means of dealing with nuclear waste and a nuclear suit.

When: All festival; Thursday 16 – Sunday 26 August
Where: Powerhouse Museum, 500 Harris St, Ultimo
Tickets: FREE with entry to Powerhouse Museum – $30 family, $12 adult, $6 child.
More information on Museum opening times and charges.

More information about this exhibition.

Sponsored by ANSTO (The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation)

Science story time for preschoolers
A science storytime session for little children, with craft activities included. For 3 – 5 year olds.

When: Thursday 16 August, 11am – 11.45am
Where: Ultimo Library, Cnr Bulwara Rd and William Henry St
Tickets: FREE no booking required.