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If the 280 school students attending UWA's Science Café last month expected to see a naked scientist, they were disappointed.

But The Naked Scientist himself certainly didn't disappoint.

Dr Chris Smith is one of the world's most popular and most downloaded science presenters and UWA scored a coup during National Science Week to have him on the Crawley campus to talk to the students during the annual Science Café.

Rather than regale them with a prepared speech, The Naked Scientist simply asked the students what they wanted to know.  He fielded questions from almost every area of science, from landing on Mars to the human body.

Dr Smith and his team of scientists broadcast a live show every week on the BBC, which is available as a podcast internationally.  Their goal is to make science fun and enjoyable.

To support him at the Science Café were 70 local scientists and professionals working in science and engineering.  About half of them were from UWA, the rest from industry and other universities.

At a ratio of one to four, and with the scientists moving around the tables every 10 minutes, all the students had ample opportunity to ask questions and learn something new.

UWA graduate Sarah Lau, Communications Manager for the ChemCentre was the Master of Ceremonies.  Helen Pedersen, a senior structural engineer with Sinclair Knight Merz was a great role model for the female students, talking about her traditionally ‘blokey' job designing structures to support heavy mining machinery.

Students came from 37 schools and some from home schooling.  They were joined at the Science Café in Winthrop Hall by two school girls from Indonesia.

Licia Winata from Surabaya had won an all-expenses trip to Perth for her and her sister at the UWA's Science for Future Festival last year.

The festival, which celebrates what science has done for humanity and promotes the study of science, was launched by UWA in 2010, when it was held in Malaysia. In 2011, our scientists took the show to Singapore and last year to Indonesia.

More than 2,000 school and university students attended 10 events in Jakarta, Surabaya and Yogyakarta.

Licia was captivated by a discussion with Professor Tim St Pierre about osmosis and biomedical magnetic research.  She said the overlap of biology, chemistry and physics was a revelation for her. An essay she wrote about it won her the week, hosted by the Faculty of Science.

She and her sister Michako visited the laboratories of many of the UWA scientist she met during the festival. Our presenters included professors Carmen Lawrence, Barry Marshall, Kadambot Siddique, Brendan Waddell and Tim St Pierre.

UWA's ranking as 26 ^th in the world for life sciences and agricultural sciences attracts students in the region to the festival, most of them hoping to study here.