Questacon at this year’s Garma Youth Forum

The Garma Festival, hosted by the Yothu Yindi Foundation is Australia’s leading Indigenous cultural event, it’s a spectacular celebration of Yolngu identity and cultural traditions including dance, song, music and art.

The festival also features a major key forum on Indigenous issues.

Held on the first weekend in August every year the festival is a magnet for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people Australia wide as well as tourists from around the world.

The Garma Youth Forum is run in conjunction with the main festival, and allows students of all backgrounds to come together and share their experiences and gain a better understanding of each other’s cultures.

This year the Youth Forum included workshops on dance, music and song writing, circus performance, health and welfare, cyber safety, positive attitudes in sport, and science education.

Over the course of the four day event, the students rotated through each of the activities, as well as attending cultural workshops and special activities with local Yolngu Aboriginal elders.

Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre was involved in the delivery of a science related programme to promote the benefits and enjoyment of learning to Yolgnu youth who do not normally have access to this type of hands-on science programme.

The Questacon team engaged students in concepts of sound, pressure, the surface tension of water, and balance through activities that demonstrated the science using hands-on activities.

A very quick - and loud - introduction to Newton’s Third Law of motion with all the Forum participants was made possible with the help of over 100 rocket balloons and just as many excited teenagers and Youth Forum leaders.

Questacon team manager Peter Mascini said it was an amazing experience to be in involved at GARMA.

“It was a privilege to work with these students from remote communities across the Top End and to pass on our passion for science and learning to them.”

“A lot of these kids have not had been exposed to this sort of science programme before and they all really loved the hands on aspect to the activities, “Peter said.

Questacon Maker Project team member Aidan Murray said it was a rewarding experience for all those who participated in the Youth Forum.

"It was a remarkable four-day event and the positive feedback we got from all the youth who took part was fantastic. From the presenter’s perspective we also learnt a lot about Yolgnu culture and traditions, so it was win, win.”

“It is definitely an event that Questacon would like to be involved in again, “Aidan said.