Key takeaways
- National Science Week 2026 runs Saturday 15 to Sunday 23 August, with the school theme 'Seeds of Science: Nurturing Knowledge for All'.
- Plan a mix: one hands-on hero experiment plus five to ten short, low-prep activities across the week.
- Lean into the 'seeds' theme with germination, growth and 'planting an idea' investigations that run for the whole week.
- Most activities below use kitchen or hardware-store materials, so you can run Science Week on a near-zero budget.
- Turn any experiment into a prediction sheet, vocabulary word search or comprehension task in a couple of minutes.
National Science Week is Australia's biggest celebration of science and technology, and one of the largest public science festivals in the world. The 2026 event runs from Saturday 15 August to Sunday 23 August, and the school theme is 'Seeds of Science: Nurturing Knowledge for All'. A free teacher resource book is published each year to support the theme.
The trick is to keep it hands-on without burying yourself in prep. The 18 activities below are sorted from quick, no-mess settlers to bigger investigations worth the setup. Most use materials you already have at home or in the store cupboard, and nearly all work from Foundation to Year 6 with small tweaks to the recording sheet.
Quick wins: low-prep Science Week activities
1. Skittles rainbow. Arrange Skittles in a circle around the rim of a white plate, pour warm water into the centre, and watch the colours race inwards without mixing. It takes five minutes, needs one packet of lollies, and opens a great chat about dissolving and diffusion.
2. Walking water. Line up six clear cups, fill every second one with water tinted red, yellow and blue, then bridge each gap with a folded paper towel. Over a few hours the water 'walks' across and new colours appear in the empty cups — capillary action and colour mixing in one.
3. Grow a bean in a jar. Line a clear jar with a damp paper towel, tuck a dried bean against the glass, and place it on the windowsill. Students sketch the roots and shoot each day for a week — a perfect 'Seeds of Science' anchor that costs almost nothing.
4. Static electricity butterflies. Cut a tissue-paper butterfly, rub an inflated balloon on hair or wool, and hold it above so the wings lift. Two minutes of pure wonder that introduces static charge.
5. Sink or float prediction station. Set out a tub of water and ten classroom objects. Students predict, test and tally the results. Great for early years, and an easy way to practise the 'predict, test, record' cycle of the scientific method.
Bigger investigations worth the setup
6. Elephant toothpaste. Mix warm water, dish soap and a sachet of dry yeast, then add hydrogen peroxide (use 3% for a class demo) to erupt a giant foam 'toothpaste'. Run it as a teacher demo over a tray and discuss exothermic reactions and catalysts.
7. Density tower. Layer honey, dish soap, water, oil and rubbing alcohol in a tall glass so they stack in bands. Drop in small objects — a grape, a bead, a bottle cap — and see where each one settles. A striking way to teach density.
8. Oobleck. Mix roughly two parts cornflour to one part water to make a fluid that turns solid when you punch it and runny when you relax. Cheap, messy and unforgettable for a lesson on states of matter.
9. Seed germination race. Give small groups the same seeds but change one variable each — light, no light, warm, cold, water, no water. After a week, compare growth and graph the results. This ties the 'seeds' theme straight into a fair-test investigation.
10. Build a solar oven. Line a pizza box with foil, add a cling-film 'window' and a black paper base, then melt a chocolate-and-marshmallow s'more in the sun. A whole-session build that links energy, heat and sustainability.
11. Citizen science count
Join a real national project — log frog calls, birds or clouds through a citizen-science app and add your class's data to a nationwide dataset.
12. Design-a-seed dispersal
Students design and build a 'seed' that travels furthest when dropped from a height — spinning, floating or sticky — then test and measure the distance.
13. Kitchen pH rainbow
Use boiled red-cabbage water as an indicator and test lemon, bicarb, soap and vinegar to reveal acids and bases in colour.
14. Science vocabulary word search
Build a word search from this year's key terms — germinate, hypothesis, variable, dissolve — as a five-minute morning settler.
15. Paper-plane fair test
Change one variable — wing length or paper weight — fold, fly and measure. A clean introduction to controlled variables.
16. Scientist of the day
Each day, spotlight one Australian scientist and their discovery, then have students write one thing they'd ask them.
More than 2,000 National Science Week events run across Australia each year in schools, libraries, universities and science centres — a good hook for showing students that science happens everywhere.
Source: National Science Week
How to plan your Science Week in five steps
- 1
Download the resource book
Grab the free National Science Week school resource book built around this year's 'Seeds of Science' theme so your activities tie back to a shared focus.
- 2
Pick one hero experiment
Choose a single anchor — elephant toothpaste, a density tower or a solar-oven build — so the week has a highlight without overloading you.
- 3
Slot in one small activity a day
Add a quick, low-prep experiment each morning. Small and consistent beats one exhausting mega-day of stations.
- 4
Start a week-long grower
Set up the bean jar or germination race on day one so students have something to observe, sketch and measure all week.
- 5
Prep your recording sheets early
Batch the prediction sheets, vocabulary word searches and comprehension tasks the week before so Science Week itself is low-stress.
Turn any experiment into a ready-to-print resource
Paste in a topic or experiment and generate prediction sheets, vocabulary word searches and comprehension questions in a couple of minutes — differentiated for your year level.
Make science worksheets with AIFrequently asked questions
National Science Week 2026 runs from Saturday 15 August to Sunday 23 August. Many schools hold their main science day on a weekday inside that window that suits their timetable.
The 2026 school theme is 'Seeds of Science: Nurturing Knowledge for All'. It's a natural hook for germination experiments, growth investigations and 'planting an idea' activities across the week.
Lean on low-prep classics: a Skittles rainbow as a morning settler, walking water on the bench, a bean growing in a jar, or a sink-or-float prediction station. Most use kitchen materials and take under fifteen minutes.
Nearly every activity here uses store-cupboard or hardware items — cornflour, food colouring, bicarb, dried beans, foil and paper towels. Skip the kits and let students investigate with cheap, everyday materials.