Outreach Program: Element Sets for Schools

Nano Vacuum is proud to be a part of the Outreach Program: Element Sets for Schools designed and produced by Professor Stuart Batten of Batten Research Group, School of Chemistry, Monash University.

He is a Professor of Chemistry and has a passion for promoting the understanding of science (and STEM subjects in general) in schools and the general community, particularly in rural, remote and low socio-economic (SEO) communities which are often poorly resourced and serviced in these subjects.

In 2019 he designed and produced 600 “element sample sets” that were distributed FREE to secondary schools all over Australia, as part of the International Year of the Periodic Table. Each set consisted of 30-33 small containers filled with a sample of a different chemical element, a booklet, and a set of teachers’ notes. Schools in remote and regional Australia, as well as low SEO government schools, were particularly targeted, and sets were sent as far afield as Christmas Island, Broome, and remote areas of outback WA, Queensland and NT. Overall, the project was a resounding success. An estimated 50,000 students per year can now benefit from the sets already distributed.

Given the extraordinary success of this project, and the unmet demand for more sets, he is now making another 1000 of these hand-made sets for the year 2022. 

More details can be found at http://stuartbatten.net/the-elements