Gravity Discovery Centre staff members Tracie Troth, Brad Whittaker and Anja Cherian.
Camera IconGravity Discovery Centre staff members Tracie Troth, Brad Whittaker and Anja Cherian. Credit: Supplied/Bruce Hunt

Pumped up for a party

Lucy Jarvis, North Coast TimesNorth Coast Times

They will hold a free community event, the Science is Fun Fair, on November 16 at the centre in Gingin, with a range of activities from rocket demonstrations to rides on an inflatable rocket.

There will also be a giant birthday cake, local business and university displays, roaming scientists and face painting.

WA Laureate Fellow Prof Phil Bland will talk to visitors about his hunt for meteorites and his brand new Fireball in the Sky community participation project.

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The event will be opened by WA Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley and Shire of Gingin councillors.

Manager Anja Cherian said GDC had grown into a facility loved by the public as well as the education and science communities over the past decade.

‘Despite ongoing funding problems and threats of closure, the GDC has flourished and hopefully will continue to do so,’ she said.

In 2010, the centre faced possible closure after the State Government gave it notice that funding would end that June, with an expectation GDC should become self-sufficient.

But that July, then science and innovation minister Bill Marmion threw GDC a $178,000 lifeline that enabled it to continue to operate.

The following year, the State Government committed $1.1 million to GDC over four years through its 2011-12 budget.