When Lisa Pluis started teaching science 22 years ago, she shared a computer with seven other teachers, using it only to store student grades, with any worksheets handwritten and photocopied.
''The big advancement was having overhead projectors,'' she said. ''Back then the students didn't have the technology at their disposal [either]; they were very reliant on teachers giving them knowledge or the information.''
In the age of the internet and as technology has moved on, science teachers have had to keep up, requiring them to evolve into learning facilitators and keep abreast of the rapid developments, according to Pluis, the director of science at Gungahlin College.
As part of that professional development, Lake Ginninderra physics teacher Alan Lyall will travel next week to CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva for a three-week high school teacher program.
He is one of only a few Australians chosen to participate in the program in its 16-year history, which brings teachers up to speed on the latest scientific developments for them to incorporate into school curriculums.
''It's a matter of bringing that back to school in a way the students can understand it – the world of quarks and bosons and things like that,'' Lyall said.
While that may seem like a challenge, it is a relatively minor one faced by science teachers, who are desperately trying to attract and retain students in the sciences.
''I am forever pointing out where science dominates our world,'' Melrose High School science teacher Geoff McNamara said. ''The students need to understand science or this country is stuffed.''
McNamara runs an elective science mentors program with his year 9 and 10 students. It partners students with a scientist in their field of interest, from geology to meteorology to sports science.
''The reason to do it is really motivation. If a student's got an interest in one particular branch of science, let's say they're interested in physics, you don't drive chemistry down their throat.''
McNamara is filling an important gap, identified by Pluis and Lyall, of getting children enthusiastic about science in the early high school years, with fewer students choosing to study sciences at college level.
''A big challenge is making sure specialist science teachers are teaching science subjects and students aren't turned off at an early age,'' Pluis said. ''That’s really addressing how science is taught through the high schools.
''You need specialised science teachers because they have the passion and the enthusiasm.''
While science labs look largely the same as they did decades ago, and the basic foundations are still the key, schools are slowly moving to more flexible set-ups to make way for electronic and emerging technologies.
''We still need the traditional lab with the gas taps and water supplies, but for an increasing number of investigations ... we need flexibility and electronic resources,'' McNamara said. ''The big problem is it's expensive.''
A major resource for schools has been outsourcing facilities and expertise.
McNamara runs his mentors program, the CSIRO has a similar Scientists in Schools initiative, Lyall takes his students to the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, and the Australian National University has one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the southern hemisphere, which Pluis has students do experiments with.
''The sad thing is the CSIRO is being decimated currently, and I imagine one of the things they will eventually have to lose is their education side of things,'' she said.
''That would be detrimental to the teaching of science if those institutions such as CSIRO and ANU are being cut enough that they have to stop offering those outreach programs.''
