The Physics Outreach Unit at UNSW Australia contributes to the goals of the IAU's Commission 55 by collaborating with established institutions to improve public engagement with science. We aim to not only increase public awareness of astronomy but also ensure the benefits to society of our scientific endeavours are understood. We have found collaborating with like-minded institutions who are working in similar spaces allows both parties to make a larger impact than working alone. For example, our long-term collaboration with the Australian Museum provides the opportunity to engage urban and rural communities with science, audiences to which we do not normally have easy access. To increase our national presence we are exploring new relationships with other institutions, in particular the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), in hosting events such as public talks with eminent astronomers, star parties and astronomical workshops. These partnerships help build firm foundations for planning future events, in particular during the International Year of Light 2015.

The physical and chemical properties of prestellar cores, especially massive ones, are still far from being well understood due to the lack of a large sample. The low dust temperature (< 14 K) of Planck cold clumps makes them promising candidates for prestellar objects or for sources at the very initial stages of protostellar collapse. We have been conducting a series of observations toward Planck cold clumps (PCCs) with ground-based radio telescopes. In general, when compared with other star forming samples (e.g. infrared dark clouds), PCCs are more quiescent, suggesting that most of them may be in the earliest phase of star formation. However, some PCCs are associated with protostars and molecular out ows, indicating that not all PCCs are in a prestellar phase. We have identied hundreds of starless dense clumps from a mapping survey with the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7-m telescope. Follow-up observations suggest that these dense clumps are ideal targets to search for prestellar objects.