4th - 10th October World Space Week

World Space Week 2023 will inspire students worldwide to study STEM and business, and offer space companies the opportunity to recruit the workforce needed for the expanding commercial space industry. The theme for World Space Week 2023, “Space and Entrepreneurship”, recognises the growing significance of the commercial space industry in space, and the increasing opportunities for space entrepreneurship and new benefits of space developed by space entrepreneurs. With miniaturization and decreasing launch costs, it is now possible for a small business to build and launch a small satellite, and for entrepreneurs to create valuable new data products for governments and industry.

The concept for this 2023 poster was crafted by a high school student in Croatia, Mia Platužić, who won the open call for poster concepts.

Good week to use Astronauts Zoom!

Who knows one day, a child you are teaching now may go into space. Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australian Space Agency Director, made history as the first Australian-born woman to be trained as an astronaut by an international space agency. She went to school on Sydney's northern beaches. Dr. Meganne Christian is also an Australian astronaut. She came to Australia as a very young child and did her education here in NSW. Both of these amazing women were taught by teachers like us.

Australia isn't known for being forerunners in space exploration, research or entrepreneurship, but we certainly have some picture books by Australian authors and illustrators that tempt students to explore space more. Start with these and keep going...

• Give me Some Space  by Philip Bunting

• Chooks in Space  by Chris Collin

• Bear in Space  by Deborah Abela and Marjorie Crosby-Fairall

• Blast Off!  by Shelly Unwin and Ben Wood

• City of Light by Julia Lawrenson and Heather Potter

• Touch the Moon by Phil Cummings and Coral Tulloch

• Moonwalkers  by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton        

• Count the Stars by Raewyn Caisley and Gabriel Evans

• Stellarphant by James Foley

• Mr Chicken Goes to Mars  by Leigh Hobbs

For students who dream of being an astronaut

• Astronaut Handbook  by Meghan McCarthy

• How to be an Astronaut by Sheila Kanani and Sol Linero

• Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed and Stasia Burrington

• The Astronaut With a Song for the Stars by Julia Finley Mosca and Daniel Rieley

• The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield and the Fan Brothers

• Reaching for the Moon by Buzz Aldrin and Wendell Minor

• One Giant Leap by Robert Burleigh and Mike Wimmer

And two new books that are due soon

• We are all Astronauts by Kate Pankhurst

• How to Eat in Space by Helen Taylor and Stevie Lewis