Senior Science Skills Days - Faculty of Science

We're inviting school groups of Year 10 students who have selected to study senior science subject(s) and their teachers to attend our on-campus experience to further develop their scientific research skills.

We're running workshops that address critical thinking, experimental risk management, data processing and visualisation, science literacy, and framing research questions to give you a head start in senior science. 2026 is the 6^th year running of Senior Science Skills Day.

When and where

16–20 November 2026

9:30am to 2pm (please arrive no later than 9:30am)

UQ St Lucia campus

Monday 16 November 2026
Tuesday 17 November 2026
Wednesday 18 November 2026
Thursday 19 November 2026
Friday 20 November 2026

Cost

There is no cost to attend this event.
Transportation to and from campus is at your expense.

What you'll need to bring

Students must bring their own laptop for Workshop B. We will provide you with a sample data set that should be pre-downloaded onto their laptops before arrival.
Please bring your own food and drink for morning tea and lunch or purchase from our on-campus outlets during our lunch break.

2026 Registrations

Please provide your school name, number of students, and preferred dates to Dr Gurion Ang at gurion.ang@uq.edu.au.

The following documents are available to download to assist with your local school approval process:

Activities risk assessment (PDF, 68.2 KB)Bus alighting map - UQ St Lucia campus (PDF, 397.5 KB)

2026 program

Time	Description
9:30am	Combined workshop: Developing research questions Skills: identify keywords from a research claim develop research questions that are relevant and specific to a research claim analyse data to answer a research question identify limitations from research methodology used.
10:15am	Break
10:45am	Workshop A: Scientific literacy through the biology, chemistry and physics of Australian box jellyfish* Skills: identify the components of a peer-reviewed scientific article present tables and figures using appropriate scientific writing convention analyse a figure and figure caption draw a conclusion by integrating two sources of information.
11:30am	Workshop B: Data Processing and Visualisation* Skills: perform Descriptive Statistics to summarise data using Microsoft Excel identify outliers from a dataset using the two-standard deviation method recognise mathematical uncertainty, standard deviation, and standard error as ways to interpret uncertainty produce a bar graph following genre conventions. schools will be provided the sample data set to download prior to your visit. Microsoft Excel is required.
12:15pm	Break
12:45pm	Workshop C: Risk Management* Skills: perform a soil sample analysis, contextualised in forensic zoology identify and distinguish between physical, chemical, and biological risks identify risk mitigation strategies.
1:30pm	What doors have you opened by selecting to study senior science subjects? (pep-talk by Dr Gurion Ang)
1:45pm	Depart

*Please note: Attendees will participate in all workshops but the workshop order is determined on the day.