Opening of the Victoria Space Science Education Centre
13 September 2005
The Honorable Mr. John Brumby, Victoria's State Treasurer and Minister of Innovation formally opened the Victoria Space Science Education Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The Centre was built for the purpose of the promotion of science education in Victoria. It will be accessible to all students. The Centre will allow students to be immersed in a space science mission to Mars and to work as scientists on the ISS. The Centre has specific spaces for the activities that studens will take part in.
 |
 |
 |
For example there will be a planetary surface simulation room, which will initially represent the surface of Mars and will be constructed in such a way that it can be reconfigured to represent any planetary surface.
One of the key rooms in the Centre is the Massimo Room modeled on ESTEC's Concurrent Design Facility and named after Massimo Bandecchi, who inspired the teachers who visited the CDF and could see the potential of applying the prinriples of concurrent design to curriculum design.
All programmes at the Centre have been written to directly link into the state education curriculum taught in Victoria. The key requirements for future scientists are teamwork problem solving and leadership, which has been written into the individual programmes being run in the Centre.
The Centre has been designed by one of Australia's leading architects Gregory Burgess, who was the recipient of the Royal Australian Architectural Gold Medal Award. He has based the design on the shape of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The Centre will be online at the beginnig of the Australian Academic Year 2006 in January.