Sharing & Showcasing Science Heritage

Celebrating the International Day for Monuments and Sites 2020: Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility

This Australia ICOMOS webpage has been set up to share and showcase some of Australia’s significant science heritage – the forgotten and invisible, as well as the well-known – to celebrate the 2020 International Day for Monuments and Sites, the theme of which is Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility.

Science heritage is a heritage that is shared across scientific disciplines and technologies and between scientists/technologists and heritage practitioners; it is a shared responsibility that should be shared more broadly with the community. This sharing of knowledge is an excellent fit with this year’s theme for the International Day for Monuments and Sites.

Greater profiling of Australia’s science heritage was also a key recommendation from the 2018 Australia ICOMOS Science Heritage Symposium Under the Microscope – Exploring Science Heritage. We also see this webpage as a potential starting point for developing an Australian ‘Science Heritage Inventory’, another key recommendation of the Symposium.

This webpage has been set up for 18 April 2020, the International Day for Monuments and Sites. 

Australia ICOMOS will be relying on scientists/technologists, heritage practitioners and members of the community, ie. you, to populate this page. So, if you have a favourite (or several favourite) science heritage examples (these can be landscapes, places, features, objects or documents) please contribute to this page (see below for how to do this). Please also let others know about this initiative and encourage them to contribute science heritage examples.

 


Work Shed, Yarralumla Nursery,
Canberra, ACT


Recherche Bay, Tasmania


Wragge’s Summit Observatory,
kunanyi/Mt Wellington


Frank Stillwell Collecting Site,
Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica

Crommelin Field Station Pearl Beach NSW

 

 

How to use this page 

Australia ICOMOS invites you to browse through the science heritage examples on this page. The examples are not listed in any particular order to help demonstrate the diversity of science heritage in Australia, and to encourage browsing. Clicking on the image for each item will take you to a PDF summarising the heritage place/item, its history and significance.

Individual place/item PDFs can be downloaded to share or for your own research as long as the work is credited appropriately, is not adapted or changed in any way, and is not used for commercial purposes.

The work on this page is regarded as being is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to contribute a science heritage example 

For each science heritage example please submit 1-2 images (with captions) with an accompanying short statement (no more than 2 pages) of the place. This statement needs to include:

  • the place/item name
  • location (nearest town and state) and holding institution if relevant
  • a brief description of what it is (at least one paragraph)
  • a summary of its history (at least one paragraph)
  • a brief statement of its significance (at least one paragraph)
  • what heritage lists it is included on (if any)
  • key further reading references (only one or two)
  • the name of the person making the contribution (and area of professional expertise if relevant) 
  • a contact email address

Note: images submitted should have the relevant permissions for public domain use.

Please email your contributions to Anne McConnell. Please note that all contributions will be reviewed for accuracy, relevance and appropriate length, and that Australia ICOMOS reserves the right not to accept a contribution if it believes it does not meet these criteria.

The Proceedings of the 2018 Australia ICOMOS Science Heritage Symposium Under the Microscope – Exploring Science Heritage are due out soon.

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Disclaimer: Australia ICOMOS takes no responsibility for the accuracy and reliability, or otherwise, of the data provided here. Responsibility for the accuracy and reliability of the data rests with the contributor of the data. The views expressed in the science heritage examples available on this webpage should not be taken to represent the views of Australia ICOMOS. Publication here does not in any way constitute endorsement of the views of the contributors.