At Upper Snowy Landcare we’re really keen to spread the word about Landcare and the environment to local school kids. We love getting them involved when we can and engaging them in different ways.
Throughout the second half of 2024 we have been rolling out an educational program, partnered with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water, to educate students about the Monaro Grassland Earless Dragon, a threatened species endemic to the Monaro region. We are delivering a presentation to students, followed by an identification activity, and a craft activity where students get to paint their own 3D model of the dragons. These models were scanned from a Earless Dragon specimen and then 3D printed.
In June 2014 we visited some local schools to talk about river health, platypuses, Landcare and how we can help to look after the rivers and the land to ensure healthy habitat for fish and animals. We talked about how important it is not to litter, to plant trees and control weeds and not to leave fishing line or hooks when we go fishing. We were really lucky to have Antia Brademann from Waterwatch come along and bring her platypus Bill (who is a real platypus that unfortunately died) to show the kids.
They were fascinated to hold “Bill” and see a platypus so close up, and they also loved being “Waterwatch Detectives” when we did bug catching in the river. The bugs we caught and identified helped tell the kids how to judge whether the river was healthy or not and then we talked about what makes a healthy river.
It was such fun and all the kids were so enthusiastic and excited to take part.
Another initiative we have for the kids is our Upper Snowy Calendar which is a collection of pictures done by local school children. We give them a different theme for each year with inspiration such as “Producing From Our Land – Sustainable Food & Fibre”, “When the Rains Came – the changes in our landscape” and “Down Under Matters – caring for our soils”.
The pictures created by the children are always fabulous and it’s hard to narrow it down to only 12 or so to include in the calendar each year.
