Creative Science for Kids

It’s time to get high-tech with five fun and fascinating fast facts about artificial intelligence, an interview with Dr Lucy Andrew, a university lecturer who knows a lot about A.I. in education, and a short-term memory activity for you to try yourself at home.
Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Buy tickets for ‘Creative Science: Mind Blown’ at Sydney Fringe 2026: https://sydneyfringe.com/events/creative-science-mind-blown/
Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience
Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/
Creative Science website: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Sydney Fringe Festival 2026 show ‘Creative Science: Mind Blown’
00:23 Introduction and fast facts
05:55 Interview with Dr Lucy Andrew
11:20 Short-term memory activity
 
Dr Lucy Andrew: https://adelaide.edu.au/people/lucy.andrew
Lucy talking with her deep fake digital twin: https://adelaide.au.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=0c79267c-6da0-4a6d-89f9-b3d100452cc1
 
Short-term memory activity
You will need: A friend or family member to test, some paper and a pencil.
Explain to your friend or family member that you are going to read out a list of ten words and they need to try to remember the list of words, in order, without writing them down.
Read out this list of words (or make up your own list of ten words):Apple, Monkey, Pencil, Bike, Clock, Cake, Tractor, Oven, Shoe, Tree
Challenge your friend or family member to write down the words in order. If they have any trouble writing or spelling the words, they can draw pictures instead.
How many words did they remember?
 
What’s happening?
This activity tests short-term memory and there is a limit to the number of words people can remember. For most people, the limit is between 6 and 8 words. If someone was to do this activity over and over again, they would probably get better at remembering the list of words, until they could write all ten words correctly. After enough practice, the list of words might even stay in their long-term memory.
Learning is an active process that takes some effort and it usually involves using our past experiences to make sense of new information. If someone needed to learn the list of ten words (for some strange reason) they could try using those words to write a story or maybe come up with a pattern or a poem to help them remember the order of the words. Doing this would help use their existing knowledge of what the words mean to make some sort of sense of an otherwise random order of the words.

It’s time to get to work with five fun and fascinating fast facts about energy, an interview with Lee Constable, a presenter and author of books about sustainability, and an energy transformation activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience
Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:24 Introduction and fast facts
05:37 Interview with Lee Constable
13:14 Energy transformation activity
 
Lee Constable: https://leeconstable.com
 
Energy transformation activity
You will need: an object you can drop, such as a ball or a rolled-up pair of socks, and a rubber band.
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. This is called the ‘Law of Conservation of Energy’. However, energy can change into different forms. How many energy transformations can you observe in about a minute?
Rub your hands together as fast as you can. You are turning moving energy into heat energy, with help from the force of friction.
Hold the ball or socks high above the floor. What you are holding now has gravitational potential energy, otherwise known as stored energy, let go and the gravitational potential energy turns into moving energy as the object falls to the floor, because of the force of gravity.
Feel the rubber band and notice if it feels cold or hot. Use both hands to stretch out the rubber band over and over again for a few seconds and then feel if the rubber band has heated up. If it has, some of the moving energy has turned into heat energy.
Stretch out the rubber band again so it has lots of stored elastic energy and then aim the rubber band away from you and anyone who is with you. Let go, so the rubber band flings through the air, turning the elastic energy into moving energy.
Look around you and see what other energy transformations you can see, for example, turning on a light.

It’s time for a heart-to-heart with five fun and fascinating fast facts about blood, an interview with Dr Patrick Capon, a science communicator who knows a lot about blood, and a heart pumping activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience
Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:19 Introduction and fast facts
04:51 Interview with Dr Patrick Capon
12:34 Heart rate activity
 
Australian Redcross Lifeblood: https://www.lifeblood.com.au 
 
Heart rate activity
You will need something that can measure 30 seconds, for example a clock with a second hand, a stopwatch, or the timer on a smartphone.
Feel the pulse in your wrist by holding two fingers gently on the inside of your wrist. If you can’t feel the pulse, change the position of your fingers and rest them gently until you feel the pulse.
The pulse beats in time with your heart pumping blood around your body, so it can be used to measure your heart rate.
Set the timer to measure 30 seconds and count the number of beats you feel in 30 seconds. If you double this number, that number is your heart rate in ‘beats per minute’. For example, if you count 40 beats in 30 seconds, your heart rate is 80 beats per minute.
Do some energetic exercise, like star jumps or running around, for about one minute.
Find your pulse again, set the timer for 30 seconds, and count the number of beats you feel in 30 seconds. Double this number and you will probably have a higher heart rate this time.
When you exercise, your muscles use more oxygen. A faster heart rate means the blood moves faster around your body and more oxygen can be delivered to your muscles.

Let’s go with the flow with five fun and fascinating fast facts about water, an interview with Kelly Osterberg, an educator who knows a lot about water catchments, and a watery activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience
Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:20 Introduction and fast facts
04:45 Interview with Kelly Osterberg
11:08 Water from leaves activity
 
WaterNSW https://www.waternsw.com.au
WaterNSW Education https://www.waternsw.com.au/education
WaterNSW on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@WaterNSWvideos
 
Water from leaves activity
You will need: a large clear plastic bag, some string, and a healthy tree with lots of leaves that is in a sunny place.  
Choose a leafy branch hanging down low and bending towards the ground.
Place the plastic bag over the branch so there are lots of leaves inside the bag.
Gather the edges of the bag and hold the edges firmly around the branch. Tie some string around the bag to hold it in place on the branch. Try to position the bag so water will collect in the bottom of the bag without leaking out.
Leave the bag in place for several hours or overnight. After a few hours, you should start to see water collecting in the bottom of the bag.
What’s happening?
The water vapour made by the leaves condenses on the inside of the plastic bag to form liquid water which then flows down and collects at the bottom of the bag. This method for collecting the ‘transpiration’ water from plants is a bush survival skill people can use if they are stranded in the bush with no fresh water to drink, however, you should not drink the water you collected in this activity because it might not be very clean. Maybe you can pour the water back around the bottom of the tree so the roots can soak it up for more transpiration.

Let’s celebrate World Frog Day with five fun and fascinating fast facts about frogs, a chat with some froggy scientists, Dr Jodi Rowley and Dr Rebecca Webb, and a gooey chia seed frog spawn activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
Image: Green Tree Frog Litoria caerulea (Photo credit: Dr Jodi Rowley)
 
Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience
Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/ 
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
03:33 Interview with Dr Jodi Rowley
11:19 Interview with Dr Rebecca Webb
14:51 Chia seed frog spawn activity
 
FrogID citizen science project led by Dr Jodi Rowley at the Australian Museum: https://www.frogid.net.au/
 
Dr Rebecca Webb at the University of Melbourne: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/962839-rebecca-webb
 
Chia seed frog spawn activity
You will need: cold water, a measuring cup, a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons of black chia seeds, and a spoon for stirring. Chia seeds are small seeds that you might be able to buy at a supermarket, a fruit and vegetable shop, or a health food store.
Wash your hands with soap and warm water.
Add half a cup of cold water to the measuring cup.
Add two tablespoons of black chia seeds to the water.
Stir the mixture and leave it to sit for about 5 minutes.
Stir it again and then leave the mixture to cool down in the fridge for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, take it out of the fridge and stir the mixture one more time.
Make sure your hands are clean before picking up the mixture to play with it.
When you take it out of the fridge, you will have a cup of gooey chia seed frog spawn.
You can also try adding honey or maple syrup to the chia seed mixture to make a tasty snack!
 
What’s happening?
Chia seeds are the seeds of the plant Salvia hispanica which is native to Mexico and Guatemala. When the seeds are mixed with water, a slimy coating forms to protect the seeds until they have time to grow. The slimy coating on the seeds looks a lot like the gooey jelly in frog spawn that protects frog’s eggs until they are ready to hatch.

It’s time to widen your mind with five fun and fascinating fast facts about creativity, an interview with Cristy Burne, a storyteller who knows a lot about science and creativity, and an imaginative paper activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
04:02 Self-correcting science
05:11 Interview with Cristy Burne
11:14 Piece of paper activity
 
Cristy Burne: www.cristyburne.com
 
Piece of paper activity
You will need: an ordinary piece of paper
This activity starts with a couple of ideas of things to do with a piece of paper and then it will be up to you to come up with something new to do with the paper.
Try rolling up the piece of paper to make a cylinder shape. Stand the cylinder on one end. Is it strong enough to support something? Which way did you roll the piece of paper? Was it a long cylinder or a short cylinder? Try rolling it the other way. Is it stronger now?
Hold the piece of paper high above the ground and let if fall to the floor. Does the paper fall quickly or slowly? If you fold the paper in half, will it fall any faster?
Now it’s your turn. What can you think of to do with the piece of paper? Give yourself a few minutes of thinking time to hold the piece of paper and imagine something to do with the paper that you have never thought of doing before.
What’s happening?
Creativity in science often involves thinking about existing ideas and imagining something new. Taking the time to look at familiar objects in new ways can lead to exciting new thoughts, inventions, and discoveries.

Let’s explore the nature of the Universe with five fun and fascinating fast facts about the four fundamental forces, an interview with Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, an astrophysicist who knows a lot about the Universe, and a surprising paper folding activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
05:11 Interview with Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith
11:29 Paper folding activity
 
Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith: www.lisaharveysmith.com
Future You: www.futureyouaustralia.com.au  
 
Paper folding activity
How many times do you think you can fold a piece of paper in half?
You will need: a long piece of toilet paper.
Lay the toilet paper out on the floor and fold it in half lengthways. That’s one fold.
Keep folding the toilet paper in half over and over again and remember to count each fold. After 4 or 5 folds, the bundle of paper will be getting fairly thick. Can you keep folding?
Keep folding until you cannot fold the paper in half anymore.
 
What’s happening?
The toilet paper is pretty thin, but every time you fold it in half, the thickness of the bundle of paper doubles. After one fold, it is twice as thick as the original toilet paper. After the second fold, the bundle is 4 times as thick. After the third fold, the bundle is 8 times as thick, then 16 times, and then 32 times, and after the sixth fold, the bundle is 64 times thicker than a single sheet of toilet paper.
 
The current world record for folding a piece of paper is 12 times and the record was set in 2002 by Britney Gallivan, a high school student in the United States. Britney used mathematical equations to work out the size and thickness of the paper she needed to achieve the record, and the tissue paper she used was over one kilometre long! After the 12th fold, the bundle of paper was 4,096 times as thick as a single layer of tissue paper.

It’s time to get sustainable with five fun and fascinating fast facts about plastic, an interview with Dr Charlotte Beloe, a scientist who knows a lot about microplastics in the ocean, and a cornflour bioplastic activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
03:26 Recycling plastic
05:14 Interview with Dr Charlotte Beloe
10:29 Bioplastic activity
 
Bioplastic activity instructions
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 4 tablespoons of water, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, ½ teaspoon of glycerine, and a few drops of food colouring.
Kitchen equipment: a small saucepan, stove or hotplate, metal spoon for stirring, and a baking tray on a heat-proof surface.
 
Add all of the ingredients to the small saucepan and stir with the metal spoon until everything is well mixed.
NOTE: An adult must assist with the next steps that involve heating the mixture on a stove or hotplate.
 
Stir the mixture over a medium heat and keep stirring with the metal spoon until the mixture starts to boil.
Reduce the heat and keep heating and stirring for 2 or 3 minutes.
Pour the hot mixture onto the baking tray and spread it out to make a thin sheet.
Leave the sheet of bioplastic film to cool and dry for 1-2 days. The finished bioplastic film should be see-through and flexible.
 
This recipe can also be used to make moulded bioplastic shapes by pouring the hot mixture into silicone moulds (e.g. silicone ice-cube trays). The bioplastic in this activity is ‘compostable’, which means it will break down in a compost heap or if it is buried in the ground.
 
Corn flour contains starch which is made up of ‘amylose’ and ‘amylopectin’ molecules which are both made up of glucose molecules. Heating corn flour with water causes some of the starch to form long chains. Vinegar affects the formation of the long chains. The glycerine acts as a ‘plasticiser’ which is a chemical that can change the softness and pliability of a plastic. Changing the amount of glycerine in the recipe will change the properties of the bioplastic film.

It’s time to take a splash in the sea with five fun and fascinating fast facts about marine mammals, an interview with Dr Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist who knows a lot about whales, and there’s a warm-blooded blubber activity for you to try yourself at home.
 
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
 
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
 
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
03:49 Dugongs and manatees
04:31 Interview with Dr Vanessa Pirotta
11:06 Blubber fingers activity
 
Dr Vanessa Pirotta: https://www.vanessapirotta.com/
Books by Dr Vanessa Pirotta: ‘The Voyage of Whale and Calf’, ‘Oceans at Night’, ‘Humpback Highway’
 
Blubber fingers activity instructions:
Marine mammals have lots of special adaptations to help them survive in the sea. One of these adaptations is whale blubber, which is a layer of fat that keeps warm-blooded whales warm in cold ocean water.
You will need: a bowl, cold water from the fridge, ice cubes, two disposable gloves, a spoon, and some soft butter or margarine. If you don’t have any disposable gloves, try using two small plastic bags instead.
This activity is pretty messy, so do it next to a sink, with soap and warm water ready for washing your hands at the end.
Fill the bowl with cold water and add some ice cubes to the water to make it really cold.
Scoop 2 big spoonfuls of soft butter or margarine into one of the disposable gloves and squeeze the butter or margarine down into the fingers of the glove, pushing any air bubbles out of the fingers.
Put the other glove on one of your hands first. 
Put the glove filled with butter or margarine on your other hand and make sure your fingers are covered with the butter or margarine. 
Carefully place the fingers of both of your hands into the ice-cold water. Try to keep your fingers in the water for at least 2-minutes, but take them out of the water if they feel too cold. What do you notice?
 
Your buttery fingers should last longer in the water because the butter is protecting your fingers from the icy cold water. Heat energy always moves from a warm object to a colder object and the butter is acting as an ‘insulator’ because it slows down the movement of heat energy out of your fingers.
A lot of cold-climate animals have blubber. Seals, whales, and polar bears, all have a layer of blubber to stop them losing too much heat from their bodies.
 

Let’s get immersed in a high-tech virtual world with five fascinating fast facts about virtual reality, an interview with Dr Vanessa Moss, an astrophysicist who uses virtual reality to collaborate with other scientists, and an eye-opening binocular activity for you to try yourself at home.
Written, presented, and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.
Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au
Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia
Instagram: @creative_science_australia
Episode content:
00:00 Introduction and fast facts
04:05 Interview with Dr Vanessa Moss
10:33 Dominant eye activity
 
Virtual science exhibition, The Future of Meetings TFOMxCSIRO Exhibition Hall
NOTE: This virtual space uses quite a lot of data (100MB). The space is compatible with Safari, Chrome and Edge browsers (partial support for Firefox). It is also accessible via the Spatial.io phone app or Oculus Quest 2 (VR).
https://www.spatial.io/s/TFOMxCSIRO-Exhibition-Hall-64a1609a2e4f7d91d95a43bd?share=9027864886891104356
 
Dominant eye activity instructions:
The hand you use for writing is your ‘dominant hand’ and most of us are either left-hand dominant or right-hand dominant. A few people are ambidextrous, which means they can use one hand just as easily as the other.
Did you know that you probably have a dominant eye as well as a dominant hand?
Follow these steps to test which is your dominant eye.
Stretch your arms out in front of you and use your fingers and thumbs to make a triangle shape that you can see through.
Focus on an object in the distance and keep staring at it.
Keep your arms stretched out, but slide your hands together to make the triangle smaller, while still looking at the distant object.
Keep looking at the object, and close one of your eyes.
If you can still see the object, the eye that is still open is your dominant eye.
If you can’t close one eye at a time by winking, try asking someone to help you by carefully covering one of your eyes with their hand.
If you can’t see the object, switch eyes, so the other eye is closed.
If you can now see the object with your open eye, then this is your dominant eye.
If it didn’t work, try again, or maybe you are one of the few people who does not have a dominant eye.
As well as testing for your dominant eye, this activity demonstrates how each of your eyes sees a slightly different picture of your surroundings. Virtual reality relies on this binocular vision to create realistic images of three-dimensional worlds.