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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-01 Daily Xml
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Kids in Space

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (14:57): My question is to the Deputy Premier. Can the Deputy Premier inform the house about the recent Andy Thomas Space Foundation Kids in Space event?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:57): I'm delighted to answer this question about the Andy Thomas Space Foundation event that I attended recently, which was the culmination of an effort to first of all establish a pilot program and then to roll it out across Australia, called Kids in Space, a primary school program working with primary school kids who, as we all know, tend to absolutely love space and through space love being involved in STEM education, therefore enthusing them to continue to study those skills areas and those topics.

The event itself was completely delightful, of course, because it was full of primary school kids, who are always a lot of fun to spend time with. I gave a speech before I went and saw all their exhibitions and I wish I had done it the other way around because they were even better than I had imagined they were going to be.

I talked a lot in my speech about how important space is for climate change and environmental management and so on and then I went out into the area where they had all their displays of the projects they had been working on. They were utterly dedicated to threatened species management, native vegetation management and responding to climate change and emergencies in ways that I hadn't even imagined might be possible. As always, our young people leave us behind in their creativity and also their dedication to looking after the planet.

I was delighted to see that two of the schools were given awards that day. One was by virtue of everyone who was looking, mainly the other schoolkids but also some adults, voting on which project they thought was the best one and West Beach Primary School won that one, which of course the member for Colton is probably already aware of but will be very pleased to know.

Also, Ngutu College, a school set up relatively recently by the former principal of Alberton Primary School, Andrew Plastow, which is largely for Aboriginal kids, won the Space Communicator's Award. The people who work in the Space Discovery Centre go around and choose and Ngutu College was the school that won that award.

It is terrific that we were able to do that with 10 primary schools here. What is very special about being able to now take that out to the rest of Australia is that it is not only demonstrating yet again that South Australia leads in space—of course, we are the centre of gravity for space in Australia—but we have been able to do that in partnership with an organisation called Makers Empire, which I first came across at Virginia Primary School in 2014, when I was previously industry and innovation minister.

Makers Empire was then a very small company, but it is now reaching out internationally and selling its product, taking what is otherwise a very complex CAD technology, the software, to make designs that are able to be 3D printed and turning it into the kind of software that even junior primary schoolkids are able to use. Not only have that company grown exponentially and are able to provide their services to schools around Australia and now internationally but they are also now being very philanthropic and engaging in projects that are just simply about encouraging kids to further embrace technology as part of their education and therefore their future.

For them to be able to participate in the Kids in Space program across Australia demonstrates exactly the power of South Australia, which is a dedication to young people, a dedication to education and to innovation, all of which are essential for our future economy.

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