Science / Year 7 / Science as a Human Endeavour / Nature and development of science

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Considering the impact of a changing climate on the severity and frequency of fires is one thing, but how about the impact of fires on climate? Why does Professor David Bowman describe this scenario as a 'fire spiral'? What are the consequences of a world with fewer forests? As Professor Craig Allen explains, drought and ...

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Australia has produced many of the world's top scientists. Watch this clip to discover who some of them are. Explore the scientific discoveries that made them famous, and how they changed our understanding of the world.

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Did you know that samples of polar ice can tell us what the atmosphere was like almost a million years ago? The Bureau of Meteorology has records that go back 3000 years! Why do you think scientists are interested in learning what the atmosphere was like before industrialisation?

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Visual art and science are often considered to be separate fields. Watch as Phred Petersen talks about the way he combines his passions of photography and science. What is the role of technology in enabling this crossover? What kinds of scientific discoveries can be assisted by high-speed photography? And how can scientific ...

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Good question! Find out whether this is possible by watching as biologist at MIT, Dr Sera Thornton explains. What is a genome? And why do genomes need to be decoded? If the rhino genome was successfully decoded and the part that described the rhino horn was isolated, what would the process be for creating a unicorn?

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The Bureau of Meteorology records temperatures daily at around 700 sites in Australia. There are also around 6000 sites that report rainfall information. Why is long term monitoring of weather important? What insights can this sort of data give scientists?

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This is an interactive website about Australia's savannas. It has four main sections providing information about where tropical savannas are located across the world; the importance of termites in Australia's tropical savannas ecosystem; the lifecycle of the termite; and the research being conducted in Australia's savannas. ...

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Launching a satellite into space has always been the purview of those with hundreds of millions of dollars to spare, but Cube Satellites have started to change all of that. Most “CubeSats” are smaller than a loaf of bread, but these innovative machines are revolutionising the way we collect data in space. What do you think ...

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Do you have a favourite science fact? Listen as scientists from a range of fields describe their favourite facts of the scientific world. If you've ever wanted to know the length of a chameleon's tongue or what the most common cell in your body is, watch this clip.

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The water cycle is the circulation of water on, in and above Earth and it involves a number of stages and changes of state. This clip describes the water cycle and also how modern technology has contributed to our understanding of the shape of raindrops and its relationship to precipitation. Discover how raindrop shape ...