2003 ASTEN Fellowship Report
By Sally Buttle
Discovery Science and Technology Centre, Bendigo

After receiving an ASTEN Fellowship I traveled to Scitech Discovery Centre in Perth in February to study their whole operation for a week. As the Education Officer and Site Manager at Discovery Science and Technology Centre, Bendigo, I am responsible for our holiday and school programs, science shows and activities and the day to day running of our centre. As I am on a seriously steep leaning curve in all these areas, studying at Scitech for a week has been an invaluable experience.

I spent time with most of the departments in Scitech, particularly concentrating on Education Programs, Science Shows and School Visits. Although Scitech is a much larger centre than ours their programs are fairly similar.

It was most encouraging to find that the directions we have planned for many of our programs are already fully developed and running smoothly at Scitech. For instance, Discovery’s web site is focused on Education and we are working towards it being a valuable resource for teachers while the Scitech site already contains classroom resources and ideas.
Since returning to Discovery, I have already started to streamline some of our systems and procedures after witnessing the efficiency of various operations at Scitech. This will make it easier for more staff to take on a variety of roles within our organisation without having to spend as much time training as we have in the past. In other areas our staff will be trained more thoroughly before being qualified to run programs such as the Planetarium. This should ensure a higher level of confidence among staff and smoother customer service. Also, we have begun work on a comprehensive Standards and Procedures Manual in consultation with our staff to provide more consistent training and induction across the organisation. These are just some of the things I learnt during my week at Scitech.

I would like to thank the ASTEN Committee for giving me this opportunity and trust that the positive effects will be seen at Discovery well into the future.

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