To borrow from a venerable science educator, Science Week is a time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy to learn more about how the world around us really works.
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This year, celebrating 50 years since humans first visited the Moon, it'll also be looking at how the worlds around us work too.
Ben Zagami, from Fizzics Education, said that made it a good excuse to get a traditional vinegar and bicarb soda rocket out - he'll be presenting a kid-friendly exploration of how space launches work at Federation University's SMB building on Monday afternoon.
"We've put together a show of some really interesting experiments to think about science going into a Moon mission - that's both the 1969 Apollo mission and 2024 Artemis mission, which is the next time we intend to send people to the Moon," he said.
"The people who were most enchanted in '69 were kids, you don't have to work hard to get kids interested in space."
There's an important opportunity to make sure young people engage with science and technology in a positive and memorable way during Science Week, he added.
"You've got to have good experiences in the bank, runs on the board, with positive experience with science because everyone's going to have that lesson in high school that's boring," he said.
"With good experiences to draw on, that'll keep you going through the harder times, and providing those fun experiences, where they don't just learn things but they enjoy it and have a laugh is important for keeping them enthusiastic when they get older, when it's 5 in the morning and they're 28-year-old aerospace engineers, that's important, or curing disease or generating energy.
"It all comes from enthusiasm and love for science, that's what drives me more than ticking boxes."
While Mr Zagami's Destination Moon and Beyond presentation might be for the young and young at heart, there's some interesting stuff for the grown-ups too.
An Indigenous perspective on astronomy, presented by astrophysics student and Kamilaroi woman Krystal De Napoli, will look at how knowledge is passed down through generations at the library on Friday.
The Ballarat Observatory, in partnership with the International Foto Bienalle, will host a weekend exhibition of space photography - with children's activities, before a virtual reality moonwalk.
Federation University will host a Brainstem morning tea at the Art Gallery of Ballarat on Thursday morning, promising fun trivia questions.
In Smythesdale, families are invited to a special stadium science extravaganza, with a few explosive surprises, at the Woady Yaloak Recreation Reserve from 5.30pm on Monday.
Victoria University's Professor Science Troupe will put on an interactive performance, followed by star gazing outside, and the Scarsdale Men's Shed will rev up the barbecue.
These regional opportunities to get involved are crucial, Mr Zagami said, because
"We try to do the hard yards for the teacher, we travel to them with the experiments, beacuse it's so important to give them opportunity to engage their interests," he said.
"Neil Amstrong was born in a little town in Ohio, he was a little kid in a regional area.
"We're not going to stop exploring space - the Australian Neil Armstrong could be in Ballarat, or Traralgon, or Hamilton, anywhere."
Several of these events require booking ahead of time, visit scienceweek.net.au/ for more information.
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