Woodside’s social contribution strategy focuses on creating capacity through long-term, strategic investment in its communities. The Foundation for the WA Museum has developed a unique and highly successful partnership with Woodside and the WA Museum spanning an impressive 20 years.
Delivering award winning education and research outcomes, the partnership has strong links to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A visit to the WA Down Under Gallery at the Maritime Museum provides the WA community an opportunity to explore undersea worlds beyond reach, inspiring and educating children and adults about the diverse biology of Australia’s west coast. A fantastic outcome of the thousands of research hours spent in the field surveying over 2,500 kilometres of WA’s North West coast, collecting over 55,000 animal and plant species for the Woodside Collection and discovering a remarkable 1,000+ new species with further new discoveries yet to be revealed as research of the raw materials continues.
Woodside’s ongoing 20-year commitment to the Foundation and the WA Museum was further reinforced with Woodside demonstrating leadership and foresight as the first corporation to take up a New Museum Naming Rights opportunity. The Woodside Learning Studio at the New Museum, Perth will offer a unique, creative learning environment that embodies contemporary lifelong learning practice. It provides innovatively crafted flexible spaces that facilitate learning and collaboration for a range of audiences, of all age groups and educational levels. Up to 120 visitors at a time will be able to explore and learn through presentations, activities and workshops delivered by WA Museum staff, other learning providers, artists, professionals and third party groups.
Importantly, this ongoing partnership has enabled the creation of the endowed Woodside Marine Biodiversity Fund which was established to generate a sustainable source of funding that will support the Museum’s Woodside Collection and associated partnership initiatives in perpetuity.
