From Participant to Coordinator: Casey Rivett-Smith's Oliphant Story

by Casey Rivett-Smith, 2026 Coordinator at Lock Area School

I first became involved with the Oliphant Science Awards when I was in Year 2 or Year 3. My first ever entry from memory was a simple board game about animal habitats, where players had to try and get the start to their animal’s habitat first, answering simple questions along the way. In the two years after this I took photos showing the life cycle of a Monarch Butterfly, as well as made a poster about Ocean Habitats. From then on though, my focus was well and truly on board games.

In Year 5 I had my first experience of winning First Prize, for my board game about the Ocean, which featured playing on Perspex with an ocean scene below. The following year I created a board game with friends about the human body using the previous idea of Perspex and a human body underneath. Then in Year 8 I won my second First Prize for my board game about the Rainforest, which featured a box that opened up to look like the rainforest with magnetic pieces to move around. My final entry was in Year 9, where I made a board game about bats, which was made to be played in the dark and with a box with pillars to give it a roof, hanging bats and stalactites for good measure.

The thing that I enjoyed most about the Oliphant Science Awards was the opportunity to be creative and do something to showcase my thinking in new ways, outside of school. I loved learning new things, but school for me was often very scripted by the teacher and didn’t allow so much for this free choice research. My mum was a large driving force for me in my continual participation, as she supported me with resourcing materials and keeping me on track to get finished in time. I think the greatest thing that I achieved from my experiences with Oliphant Science Awards was an even bigger love of science and interest in the world around me. Going to see the displays of other people’s entries was a highlight for me, as I loved seeing how so many different ideas could fit into the same category.

Being an OSA Coordinator has been a long-time dream of mine, which started to become a reality when I became a Technologies specialist teacher. After I started at my current site, a very small rural town on the Eyre Peninsula, I offered to run sessions at lunchtime with the support of my husband, the high school Science teacher, to enable students to have their first experiences of the awards. I have really enjoyed my last three years supporting students at my current site, and again this year, particularly seeing the faces of students who are participating light up as they see me and ask to talk about their project and build on their ideas further. Seeing students from the first year continuing to create entries and seeing how much they have gained from each experience really makes everything worth it. That and seeing new students every year excited to take on the challenge. My hope each year for my students is for them to see themselves as successful and to come out of the experience with new skills and scientific understandings.

I still have my two winning board game entries and I use them every year with students as a talking point and example of what can be done to fit the board game category in particular. The students love having them out in the library at lunch times to play and test how much they know about the rainforest and the ocean. I love the fact that my creations have more life in them than just sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

Last year was a personal highlight for me as well because my daughter started school and she created her first ever entry, so it was great to have the experience of being the parent of an entrant as well. Definitely different to just being a coordinator!