The National Science Quiz – An interrupted new frontier!

ACEMS plans for the National Science Quiz (NSQ) at the beginning of 2020 were full of optimism and excitement. The Centre had secured a media partnership with The Royal Institution of Australia that would allow the NSQ to reach a much greater Australia-wide audience through their dedicated Australian Science Channel. This partnership was an important development, ensuring the ongoing success of the NSQ beyond the life of the Centre.

But like every other major event worldwide, the COVID 19 situation heavily impacted the NSQ, meaning that a live event would not be possible and it was postponed in 2020 with the view to holding it at a future date.

To maintain some momentum and support National Science Week, ACEMS teamed up with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science (Exciton Science) to run a less formal National Science Week Virtual Quiz. The Quiz was hosted by the entertaining and energetic ACEMS Associate Investigator Dr Anthony Mays and included a panel of scientists; Dr Jen Martin (Founder, Science Communication Teaching Program, University of Melbourne), Professor Jared Cole (Chief Investigator at Exciton Science), Dr Gary Beane (Research Fellow at Monash University and FLEET), Dr Rheanna Mainzer (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) and Tom Gordon (Senior Science Communicator at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney).

The panellists answered a series of thought-provoking questions that delved into the many branches of science including the natural and physical sciences, applied science, and mathematics, using humour and some good scientific and mathematical reasoning. While the judges deliberated, discussed and pondered their answers, the viewing public played along, testing their knowledge and competing for prizes via the Zoom Q & A function, with the quickest correct answers winning a prize.

In addition to the multiple-choice questions, there was also a quiz within a quiz, with a further sprinkling of fun ‘Who am I?’ questions that profiled well-known local and international scientists requiring viewers to look for hints and clues, visual or verbal, throughout the quiz.

ACEMS was thrilled with the interest in the first ever virtual quiz, with 225 individual logins from Australia, the UK, India and the Middle East for the duration of the hour-long event and the audience participation Q & A attracting over 950 answers.

Feedback from a team of four students that joined in from regional Victoria:

‘Having a judging panel trying to reason out questions was really great. That made us think from a different angle. We were a group of three each specializing in molecular biology, botany and zoology. We love science in 3 different aspects of biology and this trivia was special as it included other areas like maths and stats which we haven't focused much in recent past. So, except for biology questions we refreshed our knowledge in physics and tried to reason out the most feasible answer. As an online event we could conveniently join in from regional Victoria. We do go to general trivia, but this was the first fully science-based Trivia we found.’

ACEMS looks forward to returning to a refreshed, live format of the National Science Quiz in 2021. The Centre has lined up several additional ARC Centres of Excellence partners and who will work with ACEMS to continue to engage the scientific community in an accessible, fun and entertaining way.