Pia Doss works with Aboriginal families in the Northern Territory of Australia.

The Veronica James Science Challenge for Hearing Impaired Children is an annual event which aims to teach children with hearing impairments about science – especially interesting and useful science. These children are sometimes unjustifiably left out of normal education processes because of the assumed difficulties in communicating with them.

The challenge is not only for gifted science students – rather it is an opportunity for hearing impaired students of all abilities to explore and get excited about the world of science.

The camp has been running since 1985 and until 2000 was organised by Dr Veronica James. Due to her need to pursue her important breast cancer research internationally, she no longer has the time to organise the camp. It has taken her name in honour of the huge amount of time and effort she has donated to it over the years – until 2000 Dr James was the Camp for the Hearing Impaired, organising everything from the activities and handbook to the material donations to the awards on the last day.

The main aim of the camp is to show the children (and their parents!) that a hearing disability is not an insurmountable barrier to a full and interesting life, including an unrestricted career. This is especially obvious and practical to demonstrate in the world of science.

The camps have always depended on a large number of volunteers (almost as many as the number of students attending the camp) to run all the activities, so if you’d like to help, please email vjsciencechallenge@yahoo.com.au

As well as providing general information about the camp, this web site is designed to be a starting point for its students to explore the internet. Becoming familiar with the internet is just as important for hearing impaired children as it is for perfectly hearing children, for a huge variety of reasons. Apart from the common truths of the increasing penetration and huge job market growing around the internet, perhaps the most important reason is that hearing impairments, like age, race and sex, are undetectable where text is the primary method of communication – so these children are guaranteed unbiased treatment, just like everybody else.