Education Tours take on local students’ needs
Each year, hundreds of senior interstate, city and coastal students studying Food Technology, Biology, Agriculture and Earth and Environmental Science attend Mid Lachlan Landcare’s education tours in the Cowra/Canowindra region. Learning the fossil history, land and water uses, the students appear most interested in the sustainable and regenerative practices happening in conjunction with agriculture and food production.
Local Links - Stronger Communities - LLCI005-008
The issue
Mid Lachlan Landcare was looking for a way to work more closely with local schools. We applied for a grant through Central Tablelands Local Land Services to run a Teach the Teacher workshop, offering teachers educational support, information and material on Cowra/Canowindra’s local environmental issues.
The solution
A teacher from each primary and secondary school in our district was given the opportunity to attend an awareness raising day about (curriculum relevant) local environmental issues and resources including: Biology of native insects, Saving Our Species - habitat conservation of native flora and fauna, sustainable and cleaner water cycling in agriculture, seed collection and propagation, healthy soil microbiology, native trees supporting the food web. The agenda involved prominent scientists, natural resource managers and environmental educators updating teachers about relevant, local environmental problems, solutions and sustainable land use.
The impact
Teachers from local schools have begun incorporating Mid Lachlan Landcare’s outdoor Nature Classroom into their teaching prograsm. For example, in December 2018, 100 of Mulyan Primary School’s Year 3 and 4 students enjoyed outdoor lessons on the Lachlan River some touching the river for the first time in their lives. Aboriginal students handed their peers images of native flora and fauna that live along the Lachlan and joined in discussions on the Aboriginal Totem system that once guarded every species against extinction. On the shallow sandy banks of the river, students each created a science experiment looking at erosion and what makes the river muddy.
Key facts
- Local students learned:-
- exposed soil causes erosion.
- ground cover from trees, grasses and their root systems held soil in place when it rains.
- tree hollows play an important role in supporting native animals including the squirrel gliders and woodland birds.
- that a single gum tree supports a massive eco system.
- it can take over 100 years for a gum tree to form a hollow
- old trees are important homes and food sources for native wildlife even if the trees are dead,