The world needs creative, innovative and courageous young people who can connect, collaborate and act. We know that youth may only be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future. The time is now to let them share their dreams and design the future they want to see.
Food waste is one of the world’s biggest wicked problems. As children we understand “show-and-tell”. This works in the case of wicked problems, too. One way to speed up best practice behavoir adoption is through demonstration.
Continuing our series showcasing the 2019 Kreative Koalas artworks – let’s have a look at their creative contributions that focus on SDG 12 Responsible Production and Consumption
Following the 2019 Kreative Koala trend of acknowledging local indigenous culture, students at Lochinvar Public School in the Hunter Valley created Kuluwayn, the Wonnarua name for koala. Kuluwayn is a striking koala combining the Wonnarua culture with recycling initiative Lids4Kids, which produces prosthetic limbs for disabled children using 3D printing.
“We wanted to incorporate the fact that our school sits on Wonnarua country and that we are a Lids4Kids community collection point, so what better way to do it than paint Kuluwayn in traditional Aboriginal colours and decorate him with lids! His face and toenails have been specifically painted grey to reflect the original colour of koalas in the Australian bush. We have spread little clusters of lids on various parts of Kuluwayn’s body. Each section represents a symbol which is significant to our school.”
Those sections include Lochinvar Creek, meeting places, gardens, yarning circles and tracks and trails around the school.
“He encourages people to bring lids to the school so we can reduce landfill and help others who are missing limbs.”
Colyton Public School, in western Sydney, drew upon Japanese influences to name their koala Mottainai, meaning ‘what a waste’ as they focussed on sustainable fashion.
“We thought the name perfectly summed up our research about the monumental pollution caused by the textile industry and that as responsible consumers of fashion, we need to embrace the four R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle and respect.”
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Mottainai is decorated in pictures of sustainable fibres such as flax, mohair and feathers, and is draped in a woollen scarf made by the students. The koalas feet are chained in synthetic fabrics.
“The smaller structure on the side focuses on the concept of fast fashion, starting with a stop-motion animation created with lego to tell the journey of a pair of blue jeans. It is supported by statistics about the impact of fast fashion and is created by using cut-outs from high glossy fashion magazines.”
‘Everyone can make a difference’ was the theme for Coco, the Kreative Koala from Bellbird Public School in the Hunter Valley, who portrays initiatives developed by the school to support responsible consumption and production.
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“Coco’s head is decorated as a globe showing that it is everyone’s responsibility to think about and act upon making responsible decisions about our environment and all the people and animals of the world.
Coco’s ears are decorated with bowls of food. These represent us hearing the call to action from our homeless who require our assistance with nourishing food.
Coco’s eyes have glasses which we collected from our community to support people in third world countries who cannot afford or don’t have access to reading glasses.
Under Coco’s mouth is a toothbrush representing the terracycling of dental hygiene products we collected from our community to reduce landfill.
Across Coco’s body are items that can be effectively sorted into green waste, recycling or general rubbish, representing our commitment to reducing, reusing and recycling.”
Mega shoutout to our supporting partners helping young people solve tomorrow’s problems today
‘Problem solving is the essence of what leaders do’
“I’ve often contended that the best leaders are the best problem solvers. They have the patience to step back and see the problem at-hand through broadened observation; circular vision. They see around, beneath and beyond the problem itself. They see well-beyond the obvious. The most effective leaders approach problems through a lens of opportunity.” Karl Popper Source
Continuing our series showcasing the 2019 Kreative Koalas artworks – let’s have a look at their creative contributions that focus on SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 14 Life Below the Water.
Captain Waterways is the split personality koala from Medowie Christian School at Port Stephens who looked at SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. Half of Captain Waterways represents a healthy waterway; the other half represents an unhealthy one.
Captain Waterway’s main message is ‘Only Rain Down the Storm Drain’.
Inspired by a field visit with Jane from Hunter Local Land Services the Year 3 and 4 Medowie students came up with six initiatives to support clean water.
Don’t litter
Pick up your dog’s poo
Wash your car on the lawn or at a car wash
Prevent sediment going down the drain
Fix your leaky cars – oil is bad for our waterways
Pick up grass clippings after you mow”
Another koala exhibiting signs of a split personality is Elanora from Oxley Park Public School with one side paying homage to Indigenous Australia.
“The school and community are part of Darug land and therefore half of the koala is connected to our past. We wanted to represent water as giving life, hence the black silhouettes of water creatures. Water also gives life to communities and that is represented in the concentric circles on the koala.”
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Oxley Park students are working on a range of environmental projects and these are represented on the second half of Elanora, along with their key messages of “Think globally – act locally” and “small change – big impact”.
“Elanora is a distinctly city-dwelling koala with ties to her Indigenous ancestry. The messages and mini sustainability projects depicted on her left side are testament to the student’s endeavours and genuine concern for leading a more sustainable lifestyle. By having two sides to Elanora showcases the unique, diverse cultural community of OPPS.”
Oxley Park combined several SDGs including 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 14: Life Below the Water.
Cessnock Primary School also looked at SDGs 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and 14: Life Below the Water as they created Gumnut. Gumnut is also a split personality koala.
“Our theme was to show two futures. One side was a good side, where we as a world choose to recycle and be sustainable. The other side of our Koala represents a world where we don’t recycle, and the world gets overrun with pollution and waste.”
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At the beginning of their Kreative Koala journey students at Cessnock Primary School realised they did not have a recycling program and so their first step was to petition teachers for a bin. This idea became incorporated in Gumnut.
“We designed a box, which the koala sits on, and the plinth doubles as a garbage bin that can be opened and removed from the back of the box. Stage 3 students empty it out in afternoons. The sides of the box match the koala. One side is bright and beautiful, the other is a beach littered with rubbish.”
Another split personality koala is Koral Koala from the students at Thornton Public School, in the Hunter Valley, who concentrated on SDG 14: Life Below the Water and, in particular, the effects of litter and pollution.
“On one side is a clean flow of water with marine animals alive and well. On the other side is polluted water with litter scattered around. Our message was rain only down the drain.”
Koral incorporates a rainbow fish, made from chip-packets, spewing out storm water. She holds a net she is using to scoop litter from the water and she proudly wears a Thornton Public School hat.
“On the ears we painted the aboriginal symbol for community – this was to show that as a community we need to come together to work to help save our environment.”
Also looking at Life Below the Water were students from St Michael’s Primary School at Nelson Bay who created Plastic Pete, a koala with a hidden message.
“Students selected to create a beautiful ocean scene with the hidden message, just as plastics can be hidden in the ocean as they break-down.”
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Plastic Pete has fabulous depictions of marine wildlife but students wanted to show the long-term impacts of plastics in the ocean.
“Just because the ocean looks clean and beautiful, doesn’t always mean that there aren’t plastics there. They continue to persist in the food chain in smaller and smaller fragments. Plastic Pete is unique as appearances can be deceiving. Below his beautiful ocean scene lie a compilation of common single-use plastics, many of which were collected in our beach clean-up.”
Mega shoutout to our supporting partners helping young people solve tomorrow’s problems today
Continuing our series showcasing the Koala artworks of the school participating in 2019 Kreative Koalas – Design a Bright Future Challenge
The United Nations has created 17 Sustainable Development Goals and each school participating in Kreative Koalas is tasked with choosing one main goal to study. Four of our 2019 schools chose SDG 15: Life on Land so let’s have a look at their creative artworks.
Harmony is the brilliantly coloured koala from Vacy Public School where students from Years 3 and 4 were assisted by aboriginal students from Years 5 and 6.
“Our theme is living in harmony with native flora and fauna on the land inspired by the Wonorua people who are the traditional custodians of our land.”
Using aboriginal art as their stylistic influence, students looked at how land use around Vacy has changed over time. Fishing from the local rivers is portrayed, as is bush tucker used by the Wonorua. The words Balance and Harmony are painted on the koala’s arms, and the aboriginal design on her chest:
“represents a meeting place. Vacy Primary School is a meeting place in our village for children to come together to learn and share ideas on how we can look after our land, our animals and keep a balance between human needs and the sustainability of our world.”
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Koko the Koala is the representative from Ropes Crossing Public School in Sydney’s west. Koko is delightfully colourful and comes with her own plants as she illustrates the importance of bees to Australian native fauna.
The students were involved with Hurlstone Agricultural High School/Western Sydney University’s No Bees No Future project and combined these learnings with Kreative Koalas.
“We came up with the brilliant idea to turn our Koko into a ‘pollination station’ meaning transforming Koko into the most magnificent pot plant you have ever laid your eyes on.”
In their research the Years 5 and 6 students also looked as SDGs 2: Zero Hunger, 3: Good Health and Wellbeing), 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 13: Climate Change.
Over at Gresford Public School everybody from kindergarten to Year 6 was involved with the creation of Kara who came adorned with a straw hat and a motion sensor camera. Kara’s message was to know about, value and help Australian native wildlife, and in particular endangered animals.
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Painted in solarguard so Kara can be placed in the school garden, the artwork depicts animals such as Tasmanian Devils, Regent Honeyeaters and Swift Parrots and themes such as animal shelters, tree planting, tracking, posters and film-making. Kara even has poetry written by the students.
“Kara has a personality and a “Voice” through the messages and QR codes which link to students reading their poems on the theme of nature. These links are webpages in our digital journal and our process has supported and valued authentic student voice.”
Students at Gresford Public School also created a fabulous video call to action
All 36 students at Bob’s Farm Public School drew inspiration from the Worimi language of the traditional custodians of Port Stephens to name their koala Ngunnawal (koala) Ngurra (land). Their koala uses collage and decoupage to illustrate sustainable farming.
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“Students and teachers took part in the ‘Adopt a Farmer Initiative’ early in 2019. This experience allowed us to create a before and after sustainable practice theme to help identify how to maintain a sustainable and healthy environment.”
Ngunnawal Ngurra is covered by photographic and text cut-outs from magazines and newspapers that show the do’s and don’t’s of sustainable farming and what that looks like for life on land. The koala also illustrates issues pertinent to students such as sand mining at Bob’s Farm.
You can read more about Bob’s Farm Kreative Koalas project here
Special shoutout to our Kreative Koalas supporting partners helping young people solve tomorrow’s problems today
Bringing the right people together, in the right place, at the right time
Understanding there will be trade-offs and governments, businesses, the non-profit sector, and communities will need the courage to make difficult decisions based on thoughtful and genuine commitment to the SDGs.
Monitoring, evaluation and feedback loops
The Kreative Koalas project based learning model supports students and teachers to investigate the SDGs trade-offs and the difficult choices that will need to be made that may mean there will be winners and losers, at least in the short term.
Climate change (Goal 13) is a classic example. Those affected in the short term, such as fossil fuel companies and their workers, will perceive themselves as “losers” if they are forced to change, even though society as a whole will be a “winner” in the long-term by avoiding the tremendous risks and impacts of runaway climate change.
In 2019 three schools chose SDG 13: Climate Change to focus their Kreative Koalas’ artwork on. Let’s have a look at their creative artworks.
While looking at how climate change affects local koala populations, students in Years 3 to 6 at Raymond Terrace Public School collaborated with their Aboriginal Girl’s Group to produce a stunning koala called Mitjigan Guula, meaning girl koala in Worimi language.
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The Raymond Terrace koala uses aboriginal story-telling and painting to send a contemporary message of what is happening on Worimi lands and how inaction on climate change leads to devastating bush fires.
“Just like our young RTPS Aboriginal Girl’s Group, this koala is a young female in an uncertain world. The Worimi girls are traditional custodians and they feel connected to their lands. Mother Earth has always provided for First Nation people a feeling of connection, a sense of belonging to the Earth, to all living things – the animals, the trees, the stars, one another. In culture there is balance. The female, mother, protective, nurturing in her essence, the vessel through which life is carried would be the symbolic metaphor to speak to the dangers of inaction on climate change.”
With a clever play on words Year 5 students at James Erskine Public School named their koala Climb It as they studied climate action. Climb It has been split down the middle to contrast, on one side, a world of inaction and complacency with, on the other, a world where the future has been transformed.
“What we could see and feel for ourselves – hotter days, longer drought, water restrictions, extreme weather, bags and bags of garbage headed to landfill, rubbish blowing across the playground, abandoned chicken coops and overgrown gardens… It was easy to see the changes that we needed to make.”
This became the theme for Climb It and the inspiration for images such as a compost bin, a Return and Earn bin, a drought affected farm, pollution, bees, bushfires and an hourglass that reflected students’ feelings that Earth is running out of time.
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Students at Bennett Road Public School named their koala Dhara, which is Hindi for “planet Earth” and they began their project by asking “if you could change one thing in the world what would it be?” This led to Dhara becoming a depiction of the school lands’ history and an expression of the changes and initiatives the students want to make to their community.
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Dhara has a garbage bag scarf to symbolise animals coming into contact with plastics, and a traditional hat with swinging corks to symbolise the fair dinkum Australian culture. It also has 3D motifs of flowers to represent the importance of bees to the environment.
“Our koala is unique as it tells the story of our area visually while spreading a message about how to look after the planet. Our art work is one of a kind – not only you can see the koala but you can interact with all the pieces that are stuck to it such as the rubbish, flowers and animals.”
Shoutout to our Kreative Koalas supporting partners for helping young people solve tomorrow’s problems today.
This was the challenge set for students at Bennett Road Public School as they embarked upon their 2019 Kreative Koalas project.
Through their research students came up with an enormous range of ideas including:
purchase of a hive to support bees,
purchase of tanks to conserve water,
expansion of the school garden to provide produce for the canteen,
investment in solar panels,
the reduction of food waste through worm farms and composting,
extension of the school recycling project
support of community initiatives such as Lids for Kids and Wands for Wildlife
recycling and repurposing clothes
planting of native trees and shrubs
After researching ways to make a difference students then made a case for change:
“Students through research, investigation and education realised the importance of the environment. They understood that the environment plays a crucial role in the healthy living of humans in the world.”
And defined a scope for action:
“We decided the best way to help the climate was to learn how to help so we could teach others and then start to make changes at the school together.”
This led to an action plan involving zero-cost changes at the school, minimal cost changes and long term goals that can be achieved through slow sustained implementation and evaluation.
“The cost of solar panels and water tanks are expensive and not always included in school budgets. There are ways around big ticket items such as applying for grants, entering competitions and getting sponsors. But educating the students about the cost and effects of using electricity has made them more aware and conscious about turning electricity off and limiting their uses of resources. Our students have become more environmentally aware and conscious”
Through their Kreative Koala journey the staff at Bennett Road Public School was proud of the knowledge and passion students displayed in their research and presentation of ideas, and their enthusiasm for change and how they can make a positive impact. This was tempered somewhat by the realisations that change can take money and time, and that not all in the community believe in climate change. However teachers were surprised at how students committed to sharing their knowledge with family and friends, and implementing change in their own households.
“Success for us is defined as students making changes themselves and educating others about changes they can make that will positively impact the future.
Success is having students passionately talking about the environment and thinking critically about the things they can do to help.
Success is creating a generation of environmental activists that are prepared to stand up and come up with imaginative plans to improve the future. Through education we can make sustainable lifelong change.”
Top stop stories from Young Farming Champions (YFC) around the globe!
In the Field
“Connect and Collaborate” are the two words we use most often at Young Farming Champions HQ, and this week it’s our pleasure to start our Muster with two stories highlighting these values.
Wool YFC and Tasmanian based shearer Tom Squires and YFC and Wool Broker of the Year Samantha Wan teamed up to secure sale success for Squires Pastoral.
Just 18 months since the start of the Squires Pastoral wool growing operation, Tom Squires has topped the weaner wool price for the Elders Wool Sale on October 10th. Elders Wool Auctioneer Samantha Wan sold Tom’s first three bales of wool at $14.32 per Kg, topping the weaner wool category in the sale.
Tom says, “While the market has taken a beating with prices falling 33 percent in 12 months, I’m positive there is a future for wool. The wool market is one of the most volatile markets in the world, but you take the lows with the highs and at the end of the day just hope that the highs outweigh the lows.”
Given the current market, Tom was happy with the result and says “it’s a nice feeling knowing that the wool you work to produce is in demand.” Tom’s remaining three bales will be held onto in the hope the market rises in the coming months. Well done to you both!
From the wool warehouses of Melbourne to the dry paddocks of New South Wales, where two Grain YFC have connected to help each other’s farm businesses prosper through the drought.
Narromine based YFC Keiley O’Brien and Cowra farmer and YFC Marlee Langfield met at their first YFC development workshop in Sydney in 2016. Living, and running farm business, hundreds of kilometres apart meant they didn’t run in the same circles, but this year when Marlee was looking for help with a job she didn’t have the machinery or expertise to do, she knew just who to call. We’ll let them tell the story….
KEILEY: I’ve been in the Art4Agriculture program as a Grains Industry Young Farming Champion since 2016, although where I live, we haven’t had any grain to farm at all this year. And to be honest, the last year or two before that have been touch and go as well. My partner Ross and I, alongside his parents, run our family owned business Noble’s Ag Contracting, based in Narromine, NSW.
We thought this drought would be over by now. We planned our upcoming wedding around it being over. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s continually getting worse. Skies like the one below show the harsh reality, that this drought is worse than anything we have experienced before. I’m not certain if it is the worst in history, who am I to make that call!? But it certainly is the worst in our history. And living in it is hard.
Just about every morning you can find me out of the house at 6AM on my walk around the property that we live on. I’ve found the daily ritual of walking the best way to start my day, but lately it’s moved from positive to negative, as the paddocks and grass around me, which would usually be looking lush at this time of year, are truly dry and dead.
It’s a slap in the face each morning that our business will struggle to make an income this year. Without anything growing in those paddocks, there is nothing for us to harvest or bale for hay. We certainly aren’t alone in this situation, especially within our area, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.
We have also lost access to all of our irrigation water, as we pump from the Macquarie River and it is currently at a record low. This means that our irrigated Lucerne enterprise will halt this year, with no water to grow a crop. We also run the risk of our established Lucerne crops dying off due to lack of water and predicted extreme heat over summer.
Financially, this is a worry – especially when some of our irrigation infrastructure is new and still requires repayments. Emotionally, it’s sad to sit back and not be able to do anything about it, like turn the pivot on to keep the crop thriving and an income streaming in. But that’s drought.
It has been dry and bare for a couple of years now. We decided from the start that as a couple of 20-odd year old’s with a young business and a young family that we’d push ourselves hard just to hang in there and get through this drought, and I believe we’ve done that bloody well to date. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.
Until this drought hit, we had always been able to source enough work within a one hour radius of home. Now to keep things ticking over Ross is travelling up to seven hours away for hay contracting work. That means plenty of nights apart. Plenty of meals eaten on their own. Plenty of missed family moments and those typical ‘how’s your day been’ conversations. It’s also been filled with plenty of questions from Ruby, our two-year-old, asking where her dad is.
We have been lucky to have some good friends and industry connections who have helped us out by giving us hay cutting jobs throughout this tough time. As hard as travelling long distances and working away from home can be, we are extremely grateful for these opportunities.
One friend, who has helped us by letting us help them, is fellow YFC Marlee Langfield and her fiancé Andrew Gallagher at Wallaringa, Cowra.
MARLEE: Andrew and I made the decision to cut all our 2019 canola crop for hay. Of course, this was not the original plan. Normally we would harvest the canola in November for seed and it would be sold to companies that would press the seeds for oil and use the byproducts for animal feed. However, due to the drought and the significant lack of rain on the spring forecast, the tough decision had to be made.
Growing canola for oil consists of waiting until flowering is finished (late September) and the plants then “pod up” forming seeds in the pods. Once 60 percent of the seed in the pods has changed colour the canola is ready for windrowing (cutting) and is then laid in rows on top of the stalks in the paddock to dry out, before harvesting the seed 10 days to two weeks later. But cutting Canola for hay must occur during the flowering stage as this is when the crop is at peak biomass…perfect for hay! Thus, the decision to make hay has to be made early in the growing season.
As we don’t normally aim to make hay, we lack the necessary machinery to do so. I’d seen on Nobles Ag contracting website they had the correct hay equipment and knowledge. Ross was keen and able to help, so the business relationship started from there.
What seemed like endless hectares of cutting, re-conditioning, raking, baling and stacking (add some sleepless nights in there too) later, we have hay!
Andrew and I are really appreciative to Nobels Ag Contracting for their professional hay making services. We now have a quality product ready to sell!
Out of the Field
Grains YFC Calum Watt attended the Fresh Science program in Perth last week and says it was a really valuable experience, training with TV, radio and industry engagement. Calum’s highlight was trying to present the crux of his research (on barley and wheat, hence the beer in hand below) in the time in takes a sparkler to run out of puff, which is about 30 seconds: “Tough!”
Wool YFC and Local Lands Service Biosecurity officer Lucy Collingridge and NFF 2030 Leader and Lego Farmer Aimee Snowdon caught up at the Cootamundra Show… along with Channel Seven’s Weekend Sunrise weather presenter James Tobin who opened the show.
Wool YFC Lucy is the social media and website manager, chief Merino steward and chief steward of the fleece Young Judges Competition, as well as stewarding in other sections as needed. Aimee Snowden attended as an ASC Next Generation Group 9 Delegate and helped with the Young Judges Competitions and beef cattle stewarding.
With string numbers of sheep and cattle exhibited, it was a real booster for the local agricultural industry in a time of hardship. Friday featured more than 100 school aged youth competing in the Young Judges Competitions for fleece, Merino, grains, fruit and veg, meat breed sheep and beef cattle. Lucy and Aimee both helped coordinate these events, which sees one or two students from each group final competition become eligible to compete at the state finals at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
YFC Lucy Collingridge, Weekend Sunrise’s James Tobin and Lego Farmer Aimee Snowdon at the Cootamundra Show
YFC Marlee Langfield caught up with Cootamundra MP Steph Cooke at her local show on the October long weekend. Marlee is an active member of the Morongla Show and admin of the show’s facebook page. She said “It was an absolute fantastic day where traditions were celebrate and memories made.”
Spotted in The Land this week: Wool YFC Max Edwards buying rams at the Boxleigh Park Merinos annual ram sale last week, showcasing the best of the best in Wellington, NSW.
Check out UNE Agriculture Young Farming Champion Becca George’s learnings from the recent UNICEF Youth Drought Summit:
Our friends the NFF 2030 Leaders caught up at the National Farmers Federation’s 40th Birthday Celebrations last week.
“Here’s a group photo of us at the 40th Birthday Celebrations on Monday night following the summit too. And featuring Matt live streaming in from Loas!” – Aimee Snowdon
YFC Martin Murray and Tegan Nock also attended and graduated from the 2019 cohort of the 2030 NFF Leaders Program.
Coming up Out of the Field
Eggs and Poultry YFC Jasmine Whitten and Wool YFC Melissa Henry are both crossing the state to attend the Landcare Forum in Broken Hill at the end of the month. Melissa will be attending with her Local Lands Services group and the Saving the Superb Parrot project, which is up for an award. Good luck Mel.
Climate YFC Anika Molesworth is heading to the icy cold of Antarctica mid November as part of Homeward Bound. She’s busy doing lots of preparation, reading about Antarctica, doing homework of science communication and visibility, and organising warm clothes!
“Homeward Bound is a 12-month leadership program which culminates in a three-week intensive voyage to Antarctica. The initiative, turned global movement, aims to heighten the influence and impact of women in STEMM, in order to impact policy and decision making as it shapes our planet. “
Beef YFC Jasmine Green from Summit Livestock has been touring the country judging show cattle at shows in Melbourne and Launceston and if you’re heading to the Geelong Show this week you might catch her there too! Say hi if you see her.
Prime Cuts
Congratulations YFC Sally Downie! The Charles Sturt University student and dairy farmer has been named Australian Agricultural Student of the Year at the 2019 Farmer of the Year Awards. What an achievement! Well done Sally. Read more here.
Congratulations NFF 2030 Leader Matt Champness who has been named Novice Category winner of the Australian Farm Institute’s John Ralph Essay Competition on The Future of Animal Agriculture. Well done Matt!
And we’re very proud of friend of the YFC Greg Mills, from GoAhead Business Solutions, whose essay entry was also shortlisted in the open category and will be published in AFI’s November journal. Congratulations Greg!
Congratulations to Wool YFC Cassie Baile who has been named one if six finalists in the Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association Ltd Awards.
Archie Action
We’re on the countdown to our 2019 Archibull Awards on the 19th November and celebrating this year’s excellent Archie entries over on the Picture You in Agriculture Facebook Page. Pop on over to see all our exciting news, including:
We asked the teachers and students at Bobs Farm Public School why they signed up for the Kreative Koalas experience. This is what they said
We are passionate about sustainable living and protecting our local environment. As a school, we were made aware of the hardships New South Wales farmers were currently experiencing and we wanted to help.
We were shocked to discover the extent soil erosion and land degradation is affecting farmers, their crops and livestock. Along with the proposed sand mine decision within our area, this led us to choosing SDG 15 Life on the Land as the goal we wanted to foucs on at a local level .
What was their project big idea ?
Our project idea was to build awareness and to teach Bobs Farm students how to keep local land healthy and instil positive attitudes towards land preservation. Students’ worked as a team and brain stormed thoughts and ideas to recognise the major struggles of NSW farmers. We then discussed our findings and identified two significant causes of struggling farmers:
Soil Erosion due to drought
Land Degradation caused by unnecessary clearing
From here we outlined several project goals to help guide our action and to ensure our big idea is successful within our community.
The following big idea goals included:
Raising awareness about soil erosion and land degradation and its affects towards local farmers.
Prevent soil erosion in school playground and garden areas
Improve soil quality in our school’s garden beds
Stop further land degradation and soil erosion in high traffic car parking area at the front of our school
What Happened?
Students used several avenues to acheive their big idea project goals. These included:
Inviting local farmer Callum Mercer, to an incursion at Bobs Farm Public to discuss the affects soil erosion and land degradation has towards farming.
Use of ground covers, mulch and laying bark in high traffic student play areas and perimeters of school garden beds to prevent topsoil loss.
Benefitting from students’ fruit and vegetable scraps to go towards composting to improve soil quality in garden beds.
Laying a gravel section at the front of the school to stop soil erosion and further land degradation.
The school took part in the ‘adopt the farmer’ initiative. We invited local farmers for an information session on 8th May where, 35 students raised $67 from an out of uniform event to send to Rural Aid contributing to the cost of sending hay bales to drought stricken farmers.
How Did they define Success?
Bobs Farm Public defined success through the following achievements:
Students have increased their knowledge and extended awareness of #SDG 15 LIfe on the Land and understanding of the effects of soil erosion and land degradation has on food and fibre production. This was made possible by a visit to the school by Kookaburra Farm Stay business owner, Callum Mercer, who is also a parent of our school. Along with his farm manager Kate King, they presented for our students and community a discussion on the importance of sustainable farming, as well as koala preservation.
Bobs Farm Green Team worked in conjunction with our local Bunnings store to cover the perimeters of the garden beds with mulch to help prevent land degradation and soil loss around the existing school garden and play equipment area. We then established a regular maintenance procedure to maintain mulch depth, preventing any further topsoil loss.
Our Green Team established a composting bin system within our classrooms. Students were educated in what types of fruit and vegetable scraps are suitable for composting and which are not. Students emptied compost bins daily into our large compost bin, located within our kitchen garden area. This was then turned into soil, ready for our garden beds and improving soil condition throughout the year. In partnership with Bunnings, we have recently upgraded two of our raised garden beds and filling them with rich compost that the students have contributed to and we are now growing seasonal fruit and vegetables, which supply our school canteen with organic produce.
It was brought forward in the schools P&C agenda to improve and help prevent further land degradation at the front of our school where parent parking and pick up occurs. Members of the P&C worked alongside with school staff to contact and organise local Port Stephens council, to inspect and suggest how to best revive the eroded and damaged land area at the front of the school. From there, the P&C liaised with local council and arranged a day to repair the damaged land area by filling it in with gravel and sand. The repair of the eroded land area has now prevented further loss of top soil and ground erosion caused by the high traffic area.
We asked the students what was Excellent, Unfortunate, or Surprising?
Unfortunate: Understanding and becoming aware of the hardships and struggles of farmers in NSW. We were shocked to learn how drought and land degradation has a ripple effect on the land and livestock of farmers.
Fortunate: Meeting a local farmer and providing the students with an authentic presentation on land management and how to maintain sustainable farming practice. For instance, to keep animal numbers down to a sustainable level to avoid over grazing in our paddocks and prevent damage to top soil.
Surprising: That students wanted to do more for sustainable living within our school. Our Green Team have improved upon our recycling and are now looking at improving our school’s sustainability circle. This will include the use of food scraps to feed our school chickens, who then give us eggs. We then sell these eggs to our school community, providing funds to buy seasonal seeds for our school garden and help produce food for our school canteen.
Congratulations Bobs Farm Public School tackling global challenges at a local level
Thank you to Heather Collins from New Zealand for this comment
We asked the teachers at Bellbird Public School why they wanted to participate in Kreative Koalas
They answered
As a staff our main motivation to participate in this opportunity was to provide authentic opportunities for students so they could recognise problems, design solutions and be part of making a positive impact upon their own and everyone else’s future.
We know that children are our future and it is our role as educators to
Each of the initiatives we have undertaken through this project have continued, we are still working on and improving applications to embed them in all our practices and more importantly into the lives of our community members.
What was their big idea
Bellbird Public School designed their Term 2 K-6 learning programs around a whole school theme of War on Waste. This underpinned and supported all of the initiatives we undertook as part of our participation in the Kreative Koalas Create a Brighter Future Program.
What Happened
All classes discussed what they felt were the main issues impacting upon the people and environment surrounding Bellbird and three major directions emerged;
the need to reduce the amount of rubbish we as consumers were contributing to the environment
the need to be proactive in improving and sustaining the quality of our immediate environment (Black Creek)
our responsibility as a group to aid people less fortunate than ourselves by utilising existing resources
Once these three challenges were posed, classes and stages began planning ways they could contribute to solving them.
We conducted a whole school rubbish audit. We sorted and weighed the rubbish collected from all bins in our school. We were amazed at many things; how much paper ended up in the rubbish, the amount of packaging and the amount of food being wasted.
Classes and our school parliament had many discussions about a plan of action. We bought individual coloured bins to sort rubbish, paper recycling and plastic recycling. These were implemented in both eating areas and the teacher’s staffroom. We access the Return and Earn program with our appropriate containers.
Classrooms had recycling bins and small rubbish bins added. Recycling bins are emptied regularly by our Environment Ministers.
Stage 2 set up worm farms and collect food scraps daily from classrooms and eating areas. These worm farms fertilise our gardens.
Each Wednesday is Waste Free Wednesday. Through this we encourage all families to making both cost effective choices and environmentally sustainable choices about the foods that are purchased and provided for daily consumption at school. It was highly evident from our rubbish audit the high percentage of pre-packaged food that was filling lunchboxes. Our community were offered alternate ideas and suggestions such as buying in bulk and dividing into portion sizes in reusable containers and cooking more nutritious options.
Outcomes
Awareness amongst students and staff has increased greatly about the amount of unnecessary waste we as consumers perpetuate. As our theme exposed us to information and facts about the Great Southern Garbage Patch, landfill required for extraordinary amounts of discarded clothing, coffee cups, water bottles and a wide range of reusable items, we have made changes to reduce our impact as a school and community. We have reduced the amount of rubbish being brought to school in lunch boxes, better reused resources such as paper that was going into landfill, utilised snippets from our community’s home gardens to create new potted plants to decorate our school but most importantly we have all started making conscious decisions about how our consumer choices impact upon the environment.
Initiative 2 – Improve and sustain health of our local creek and surrounding environment (SDG 15.1 Life on Land)
With the support of Cessnock City Council, Hunter Water and Bug Blitz, Stage 2 have participated in ongoing water testing, bug detecting, plant and animal species identification, weed identification and rubbish removal. Through these educational and awareness building opportunities, students have learnt about how local mines impact upon our waterways and the responsibility they have as residents to maintain their local environment.
Outcomes:
Students have claimed responsibility for this part of their environment. Small groups of volunteers spend their lunch play time over at the creek with a teacher ensuring that it is clean, clear of rubbish, and conducting testing that is recorded directly onto an app. and uploaded onto the net. Classes visit as whole groups to undertake more thorough data collection. Our General Assistant keeps the area directly adjacent to our school mown for easy access. It is an enjoyable place to be and a lunch time opportunity students line up to participate in. Pride in and group responsibility for the area have increased.
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Initiative 3: To provide assistance to those in need through utilising existing resources
(SDG 12.3 Responsible Production & Consumption)
Kindergarten sort a local charity that they could support and found Hunter Hands of Hope. This service provides daily meals and other services to the homeless in our local area. Blanchies Café in Cessnock kindly donated their left over food items that our Kinder classes cooked up into hearty nutritious meals that were delivered to the drop in centre each week by Kinder students with their parents and teachers.
As a school we have participated in terracycling of dental hygiene items, plastic lids to be made into prosthetics and reading glasses to be distributed in third world countries.
Outcomes:
This initiative was very well received by both the charity and the people who gratefully received these meals. Both the Kinder students and their parents benefitted from this opportunity to support those in our community who are in need of a helping hand. It too provided a waste reduction of valuable food from the business. Instilling the mindset that we can all help others has been a wonderful trait to nurture.
The collection of the other items was well supported and continues.
What Did they Notice Along the Way?
*All students K-6 have had the opportunity to be involved.
*Knowledge of environmental facts has increased.
*Desire to devise plans to take action for change have developed.
*Students have included their parents and family members in their learning journey.
*Everybody has made some impact upon positive choices for a sustainable environment both at school and home.
*All of the initiatives we have implemented continue to develop and enhance our students’ lives and those of our community.
The whole process has been incredibly rewarding, eye opening and life changing! We feel that it has completely changed the culture of the school. The conversations and research at the beginning of the year really led our environmental team to make changes. We were concerned that the changes might not last very long, but letting the students lead the change has been the key to its success. It’s excellent to see the conversations around the playground everyday. The students (and staff!) love checking with a Nature Ninja to confirm they are putting their rubbish in the correct place.
We were surprised how easy it was to get other schools and community businesses involved. With TV shows like “War on Waste” from ABC the community is aware of the effect humans are having on the environment, therefore they are keen to make changes.
On our recent year 3/4 excursion to Sydney it was lovely to see students pick up rubbish without being asked while we were at Taronga Zoo, then they even made an effort to put it in the correct bin. Many students found bread tags, lids and ring pulls on the ground which they took to a teacher to take back to our Recycling Zone…every little bit counts! A Nature Ninja also asked the zoo staff if we could take the lids from breakfast back to school. It was lovely to see our recycling efforts don’t just happen on school grounds, which confirms this whole process has been worth the effort!
The fact that Maitland’s landfill area, known as Mt Vincent Road Waste Management Centre, sits on Wonnarua country only about 30 kilometres from our school is very disturbing to us. It has built a desire to respect, reduce, reuse and recycle.
We are delighted how many conversations we are having with staff and parents about how they are changing their buying, recycling and reusing practices at home too.
Where to next?
With the end of the year drawing near, our Nature Ninjas are planning ahead for next year. We have the following ideas in the pipeline.
• Introduce nude food/zero waste days
• Plan lessons around wants and needs to reduce general consumption
• Build a yarning circle to complement our existing gardens and show respect to our Aboriginal community, as it would be a community space for all people to use.
Our most exciting news is that we are working with Lower Hunter Landcare at the moment and they are seeking grants on our behalf to run a community project for Lochinvar Creek. Lochinvar Creek runs under the New England Highway not far from the front of our school, then bends around and flows along our back fence. The project aims to clear the area of introduced species and weeds. Our students, plus invited community members, will then plant natives to encourage the local wildlife to return to our area. This project is expected to start in February.
Staff and students have really enjoyed the Kreative Koala journey this year as it has given us the kick start we needed to make necessary changes to improve our environment for the future. Without this project we would still be guessing which bin to put or rubbish in and disrespecting the environment by sending unnecessary items to landfill.
Celebrating Women in Agriculture at 2019 Australian Farmer of the Year Awards. LtoR Meg Rice, Aimee Snowden, Lynne Strong, Sally Downie, Jackie Jarvis, Sarah Parker, Charlie Aves and Sally Murfett
Ten years ago an organisation called Picture You in Agriculture (PYiA) launched with the vision of creating a network of empowered young farmers to represent the positive and progressive face of Australian agriculture. At the same time Kondinin Group and ABC Rural joined forces to create the Australian Farmer of the Year Awards.
In the decade since PYiA team members have featured six times in the Awards. In 2011 PYiA founder and director Lynne Strong was runner up in the Farm Industry Leader of the Year category. In 2015 Anika Molesworth was recognised as the Young Australian Farmer. In 2017 Greg Mills won the Rural Consultant category. Dan Fox was runner up for the Young Australian Farmer in 2017 and in 2018 he won the award for Excellence in Innovation. This year Young Farming Champion Sally Downie has received the inaugural Agricultural Student of the Year Award.
“From the hottest, driest continent with some of the poorest soils on the planet, Australian farmers supply food for 60,000 people across the globe and to do this Australian agriculture requires talented people,” Lynne says. “PYIA works with our supporting partners to identify agriculture’s emerging talent and develop their problem-solving, creative, communication and teamwork skills. The legacy of our Young Farming Champion program is a network of young agricultural leaders creating efficient, profitable and climate resilient farming systems and the perception, in the general community, that agriculture is an exciting industry. We foster an environment where innovation, disruption and creativity are encouraged, where careers with purpose can grow limitlessly and where partnerships across sectors are created and nurtured.”
Sally Downie wins Agricultural Student of the Year
Congratulations to Sally on being recognised for her commitment to Australian agriculture. Congratulations also to all of our Young Farming Champions who work with young people in the community to strive for a better world each and every day.
