Turn your lights down low: new exhibit highlights artificial light’s effects on Western Australia

Light Pollution is a captivating collaboration between several partners, including Astrotourism WA.

Part of Scitech’s Here, There and Everywhere gallery, the Light Pollution exhibit invites visitors to experience how artificial light impacts our night sky and sea turtles. It represents a bold collaboration between several partners, including Astrotourism WA, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), and Scitech.

Light pollution is the unnecessary or poor use of artificial outdoor light. It disrupts normal wildlife behaviours, affects the human sleep cycle, and hides our view of the stars.

An immersive sensory experience, Scitech’s Light Pollution exhibit allows curious minds to explore the effects of artificial light and consider how they can make positive changes to help limit it.

Carol Redford, CEO of Astrotourism WA, says WA’s night sky is a world-class natural asset:
“The Light Pollution exhibit is an important inclusion in Scitech’s Here, There and Everywhere gallery. In a world where some children grow up not seeing a single star in the night sky, children here in WA will grow up with an understanding of light pollution, and how to minimise it.

“This will safeguard our view of the night sky and protect fauna for generations to come,” Redford says.

Natural behaviours and biological rhythms

Western Australia hosts flatback, green, hawksbill, and loggerhead marine turtles, providing them with a home for breeding, foraging, resting, and migration.

While life on Earth has evolved under predictable cycles of day and night, artificial light at night disrupts natural behaviours and biological rhythms. Light pollution impacts sea turtle species in various ways, including drawing hatchlings away from the ocean. Even those that do make it to the water can be misdirected back towards shore.

Imagine yourself on a beach in the Pilbara, a hatching ground for threatened turtle populations. Hundreds of tiny hatchlings have emerged from their nests and need to reach the ocean.

In Light Pollution’s immersive projection space, visitors will experience how industrial and domestic lighting affects turtle hatchlings. Exhibition visitors will experiment with using a central console slide to adjust the lighting levels, helping hatchlings at a beachside port avoid predators and safely navigate their way to the ocean.

Artificial light at night can draw turtle hatchlings away from the ocean.

William Peng, Scitech General Manager of Exhibitions and Operations, says: “This immersive exhibit is part of Scitech’s permanent gallery transformation – Here, There and Everywhere – which explores how science and technology solve challenges in our homes, in the Western Australian community, and around the world.

“Here, There and Everywhere is Scitech’s biggest exhibition transformation in our 37-year history, with the majority of exhibits designed and built onsite at Scitech.

“We hope that this new interactive light pollution exhibit will inspire curiosity and highlight how science and technology can be used to help protect threatened species.”

We can all do our part to reduce and limit light pollution. The Australasian Dark Sky Alliance offers six best practice lighting principles, which help every Australian implement solutions for reducing light pollution at home.