Hunter Science Festival

The Hunter Science Festival is back at the Newcastle Museum on Sunday 23 August, from 10am to 3pm. It's Newcastle's biggest celebration of science and runs as part of National Science Week, an Inspiring Australia NSW initiative supported by the Australian Government. The Museum hosts it alongside Hunter Innovation and Science Hub and the Hunter Medical and Research Institute, and the whole day is free for families.

The centrepiece is the HMRI Poo Palace, a giant inflatable where kids can 'be a poo' and learn about digestion from the institute's gastrointestinal researchers, who go by the name the Grand Poobahs. If a Sunday is too busy, the Poo Palace runs as a standalone session on Saturday 22 August from 10:30am to 3pm, which is a better bet if you're after a quieter visit.

There's a stage for science shows, with performances from Fizzics Education, The Bubble Laboratory, The Pretty Amazing Jono, and the HMRI Poo Palace researchers. This year adds an outdoor stage so everyone can see the shows, and it brings back more than thirty of last year's favourite stalls alongside new free science experiences. Among them are a solar car, a robot arena, the HMRI Poo Palace jumping castle, a robot dog, and a radio telescope. On the Museum Lawn, you can grab a burger from the Newcastle Rotary Club BBQ or a 'poo' cupcake from KT Bakes Cakes.

It's all free, and the main day runs from 10am to 3pm on Sunday 23 August at the Newcastle Museum, 6 Workshop Way, Newcastle 2300.