Science News
Wendy Macdonald - Curriculum Leader - Science and Engineering
By UQ Science Ambassador – Alessander Javier
It’s Week 9! Almost the end of term, so from the UQ Science Ambassadors Team, we wish everyone well on exams and assignments.
An interesting discovery was made about our eyes just a week ago, that might help slow the onset of myopia (commonly known as short-sightedness) in children.
We’ve all heard somewhere that spending too much time indoors and looking at screens is bad for our eyes. In 2023, a review found that a third of children and adolescents suffer from this condition, where the eye changes shape, so that light from objects is focused in front of the retina, not into it, causing blurriness.
It is believed that the onset of myopia can be slowed or prevented by increasing the time children spend outdoors, as it trains their eyes to work on objects further away from them. But with school, children are often forced to focus on things relatively close to their eyes in class, or at home, in a man-made environment.
But what if we could bring the benefits of the outdoors, inside?
A clinical trial was conducted in China where primary school classrooms were painted to resemble natural, outdoor scenery for a year, and students’ visions were measured before and after. Surprisingly, it had a substantial effect on vision. Those without myopia but had deteriorating vision had experienced much lower progression over the year, comparable to prescription eye drops.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the same impacts for those with myopia. Nevertheless, it presents a new avenue for myopia prevention that could hopefully, transform the environments we live, work, and play in, to be more eye friendly in our digital age.
The study can be found here.
From the Curriculum Leader – Science and Engineering (Wendy Macdonald)
Opportunities for students:
- Queensland Biology Winter School Year12: 7th – 8th July 2025, registrations are open.
- Queensland Biology Winter School Year11: 30th June – 1st July 2025, registrations are open.
- Future Experiences in Agriculture, Science and Technology (FEAST)
29 June - 02 July 2025, Expressions of Interest (EOI's) open nowFEAST is a 4-day residential program for Year 11 and 12 students where they explore the fascinating fields of agriculture, animal science, and plant science at our Gatton campus. Students experience what it’s like to be a UQ student by participating in hands-on workshops led by our passionate students and staff! Find out more about FEAST
- Year 11 Queensland Chemistry Winter School Year 12: 3rd – 4th July 2025, registrations are open.
Don’t forget the World Science Festival Brisbane is on now. It runs from the 21st – 30th March. Check out the program here: Events - World Science Festival Queensland. There are a lot of fabulous weekend events for the whole family to enjoy.