Tour and lab session information

Education News

The Australian Synchrotron offers facility tours and laboratory sessions to education groups interested in learning more about Australia’s largest piece of standalone scientific infrastructure.
Tours and lab sessions are held on selected days and times during business hours and are free of charge.

Education Tours

Tours are available on Tuesdays and Thursdays*
Bookings should be made at least 3 weeks in advance
Tours are approx 1 hour in duration with no rest break once the tour commences
We recommend 15 persons per group. Minimum requirement is 10 persons, maximum is 26
The Australian Synchrotron is a working research facility running twenty four hours a day. While we welcome the opportunity to share our passion for science, the research activities of the facility take priority. Should we have to cancel a tour, we will let you know as soon as possible.

*Tours are not availabe from August to October to allow for VCE physics lab sessions

Click here to complete a booking request form.

Education Lab Sessions

Our Education Lab Sessions aim to familiarise students with the basics of synchrotron techniques. Students will undertake experiments which demonstrate several principles covered in the curriculum.

Education Lab Sessions are aligned with the learning standards of the Victorian education curriculum. The sessions are currently designed for students studying unit 4 Physics.

We are in the process of developing sessions suitable for VCE Chemistry and Yr 10 Science. Keep an eye on this page for future updates.

Click here for an article about the lab sessions.

This article was first published in Chemistry in Australia <www.raci.org.au/chemaust> in November 2011.

Lab Session Topics

Unit 4 Physics – Interactions of light and matter

This program is designed to cater to the Unit 4 physics Interactions of Light and Matter area of study.

Experiments:

Diffraction through single and double slits
Photoelectric effect
Emission spectra of elements

Unit 4 Physics – Synchrotron and its applications

This program is designed to cater to the Unit 4 physics Synchrotron and its Applications area of study.

Experiments:

Electrons in electric and magnetic fields
Modelling Bragg diffraction
Emission spectra of elements

Session Information

Sessions are available Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the year*
Bookings should be made at least 3 weeks in advance, although due to demand, we suggest booking several months in advance
Our Education centre seats around 20 students. However, for VCE classes, we can extend this to cater for up to 26 students (but please expect the room to be a little crowded with this number)
Sessions are 4.5 hours in duration. This will include 45 minute tour of the facility
Sessions start at 9:45am (9.30am arrival)
Sessions conclude at 2:15pm (2:30pm departure)
Students will break for approx 30-45min for lunch (Lunch not provided)
Students will need to bring their lunch with them as there is no canteen on site and time is not sufficient to leave the site to purchase lunch
Experiment booklets are supplied on the day to each student
Students may wish to bring a USB to store data collected on the day. Otherwise, data will be emailed to the contact email address provided by the excursion organiser

*During the August to October period, lab sessions are availalbe to VCE Physics classes only and are run Monday to Friday

Click here to complete a booking request form.

General public visits

The Australian Synchrotron is keen to use its facilities to excite young Australians about science, increase their awareness of the importance of science and, if possible, interest them in research careers. To help us fulfil this objective, we have decided to focus our tours on secondary and tertiary students.

Unfortunately, as we have limited resources, this means that we are unable to offer general public tours throughout the year. Information on alternative arrangements is available from the Visiting us page on this website.