The University of Wollongong has unveiled state-of-the-art science teaching labs, built at a cost of $35 million on land previously occupied by a car park.
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The Sciences Teaching Facility replaces science teaching labs built in the 1970s and stands opposite the $62 million SMART Infrastructure facility, opened in 2011.
Australia's chief scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, opened the new undergraduate facility on Tuesday afternoon, telling the Mercury it boded well for the country's science future.
"As the universities replace buildings ... a lot of the immediate impact is local," he said.
"But what you get ... with facilities like this is more students wanting to take science subjects. They may not want to go off and put on a lab coat to go to work every day, but they take science, they're interested in science, they're fascinated by it and they take a big understanding of science and how it works with them when they leave.
"So the more people we can attract into that process, the better Australia will do."
A new pre-med course being introduced to UOW in 2016 is expected to produce an extra 120 undergraduate students requiring use of science labs.
UOW vice-chancellor Paul Wellings expected the new facility to drive further enrolments in the sciences.
"We'll be marketing very heavily in the Illawarra and into south-western Sydney so that students know these facilities are available because they are wonderful and as good as anything available in any university in the world," Professor Wellings said.
The 7000-square-metre space has a floor each for earth and environmental sciences, biology and chemistry.
There are mobile touch-screen devices, state-of-the-art AV systems, computers on wheels and a world globe on which a variety of global scenarios - fires, rising sea levels, disease - can be projected.
On the mid-level biology floor, 120 digital microscopes are networked to feed images into the teaching professor's monitor - a revolutionary development, according to School of Biological Sciences head Mark Dowton.
"We won't have to peer down every eyepiece to see if they're looking at the right thing," he said.
Biology classes will swell to up to 240 students, meaning content previously taught over three days to batches of 80 students will be passed on in one lesson.
Professor Wellings said this would free up time for academics to do more research or run small group learning activities.
"We can configure our teaching time in different ways and make it more personal for the students," he said.
"I think we'll start to see an enriched curriculum ... coming out of this."