SPECTRA Awards
Ignite your students’ curiosity and foster a lifelong love of science with Spectra Awards. Developed by the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA), Spectra offers a dynamic collection of curriculum-aligned science activity cards tailored for Years 1–10.
These full-colour, engaging cards guide students through hands-on experiments, research projects and observational tasks across a diverse range of topics – from chemistry and biodiversity to aeronautics and First Nations science. Whether you’re aiming to challenge advanced learners, support those needing extra encouragement or enrich your classroom with interactive content, Spectra provides a flexible and inspiring resource to elevate your science teaching.
How to purchase Spectra cards
- Select your topics – Junior Topics Yrs 1-4 / Senior Topics Yrs 5-10 . Each topic card has between 8-12 activities.
- Work out how many students would like to attempt each topic card.
- You can either purchase a set online (prices below)
- Or contact us to get a package of Spectra topic cards tailored to meet your needs (we offer discounts for bulk purchases).
Pricing
- Unlimited access to all Junior and Senior cards (unlimited students per card, 12 months use) – $999
- Complete Junior set of 20 cards (unlimited students, 12 months use) – $499
- Complete Senior set of 26 cards (unlimited students, 12 months use) – $499
- Class Pack: A set of Spectra cards for one class (max 30 students, 12 months use) – $99
- Individual topic cards (10 students*, 12 months use) – $49 per topic card .
Click here to explore topic cards for students in years 1-4 or years 5-10.
We offer discounts for purchases of one topic card per student for 5, 10 or 20 students – contact us.
What are the Spectra Awards?
SPECTRA, or Science Program Exciting Children Through Research Activities, is a national science award program developed and administered by ASTA for students between years 1 and 10.
Spectra can be used:
- as a class activity
- to extend capable students
- to encourage and inspire students that find science a challenge
- in school science clubs
- in homeschooling and by community groups (e.g. scouts).
There are two levels in the program: Spectra for students in years 4-10 and Junior Spectra for years 1-4. Each level has a range of science topic cards where students complete activities related to their chosen topic.
The students carry out a range of practical and observational activities, research, experiments and projects. When the required number of activities has been completed to the satisfaction of the teacher/parent, the student is awarded a certificate. The cards are provided in full colour with engaging images. Junior Spectra has Spike the Echidna on nearly every card.
All Spectra cards are available as digital PDFs and need to be purchased and downloaded off this site, or we can issue an invoice to arrange payment if preferred.
Both Spectra and Junior Spectra cards were reviewed to align with the Australian curriculum: Science, updated and redesigned in 2025.
If our packages aren’t working for your classroom, let us know what you need and we will send a quote.
