Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

At ConQEST 2011 we were lucky enough to have Queensland’s Chief Scientist, Dr Geoff Garrett, as a keynote speaker.  Lucky because he’s an incredibly busy man, lucky because our conference clashed with another that he was expecting to be at and lucky because he’s an entertaining and interesting person to listen to.

His talk meandered around his education and his career, teachers that had inspired him to be a scientist and teachers who had advised him not to be, his family and his friends, his arrival in QLD to a flooded apartment and an adopted state that had been declared a disaster zone in January 2011.  The theme he kept coming back to, though, was Snakes and Ladders.

His point was that you are going to encounter snakes and ladders wherever you go.  At work, at home, logging into your online banking, trying to get from Point A to Point B.  The trick is to recognise the snakes before you slither down the game board and have to start again, and to identify the ladders for the opportunity they present to scoot up a level or two in life. Sometimes it’s about how you choose to look at things, sometimes it’s about your frame of mind when something enters your dance space, sometimes you just have to hope the beastie isn’t poisonous and get on with it.

So, as we hurtle towards the end of another term and another year I hope that you’ve been able to hurdle a few snakes and stumble across more than your fair share of ladders.  The introduction of the National Curriculum in Queensland could be seen as a snake, I suppose, but I’m choosing to see it as a ladder because I’ve had the opportunity to buy some really cool equipment to use in the classroom next year.

May all your snakes turn out to be ladders, after all.  We look forward to seeing you next year – high and dry at the top of a ladder!

ps.  Geoff also left us with a copy of an extract from Put a Little Science in Your Life by Brian Greene.  If you missed out on a copy you can read it here.