The 2014 Geoscience Australia Open Day has again proved to be a pinnacle National Science Week event, welcoming the community in to learn more about our work and hopefully inspiring some of our younger visitors to become tomorrow's geoscientists.

The 2014 Geoscience Australia Open Day has again proved to be a pinnacle National Science Week event, welcoming the community in to learn more about our work and hopefully inspiring some of our younger visitors to become tomorrow's geoscientists.

The enthusiasm of the staff in sharing what they do with interested members of the community is undeniably one of the key factors that contribute to making Open Day a great success. We were also pleased to welcome Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane who spent some time exploring the displays.

Some key statistics from this year's Open Day:

• around 7000 happy and interested visitors through the door
• over 900 mini sediment columns were created in the Education Centre
• over 730 stamp passports were completed
• over 1000 dinosaurs decorated
• all tours fully subscribed

Feedback received from visitors was overwhelmingly positive with many people very happy to see the return of the roaming Erth dinosaur, with ABC 666 Canberra presenter Lish Fejer surviving being playfully "eaten" by T-Rex during their live broadcast!

Other favourites included the exploding volcano and teddies, the many hands-on kids activities including the stamp passports and gold panning; and the opportunity to engage with Geoscience Australia's friendly staff at the science displays. The mineral display in the Foyer was also a crowd pleaser.

Open Day also went national, with an online presence taking Open Day beyond Canberra to the rest of Australia. Five science talks were live-streamed via the web and are still available for viewing if you missed them.

Geoscience Australia would also like to acknowledge the contribution made by other organisations who attended on the day including Murray Darling Basin Authority,  the Australian National University Research School of Earth Sciences, the National Dinosaur Museum, Australian Seismometers in Schools Program and the Age of Fishes Museum.

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