Tag / Environmental Justice

by Lynne Strong

How cooking home-grown food and painting a koala is helping save an endangered turtle

 

It seems a bit confusing, doesn’t it? How on earth would cooking home-grown food and painting on a fibreglass koala help to provide a better future for an endangered turtle? Well this is the feel-good story from the 2020 Kreative Koalas – Design a Bright Future Challenge. It is also a story about the power of partnerships.

Through Kreative Koalas students and teachers at St Brigid’s Primary School at Raymond Terrace researched 12 endangered species and voted on one to become their school mascot.

“The Hunter River Turtle won by a landslide. Our Year 6 students, who are painting their koala as part of the Kreative Koalas program run by Picture You in Agriculture, have completely dedicated their submission to highlighting the plight of the turtle,” Aboriginal Education Teacher Kristen Jones says.

Investigating Global Goal 15  (Life on the Land)  and to learn more about the local turtle St Brigid’s enlisted the help of Jane Lloyd-Jones from Hunter Local Land Services, which has been a long and generous partner of Picture You in Agriculture.

“Through Jane’s EnviroStories program, one of our Year 4 students is writing a narrative about the plight of the Hunter River Turtle and some of our Year 5 students are putting together an infographic about the turtle, which our local newspaper has agreed to run as a half page advertisement to educate the local community,” Kristen says.

Jane worked with the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment biodiversity and threatened species team in the Hunter, to coordinate a visit that included researcher Andrew Steed and a day of organised activities based around the Hunter River Turtle for 120 of the students.

“I have loved working with the students from St Brigid’s. I was so excited when the students voted for the Hunter River turtle as their school mascot and after providing a presentation to students about the turtles’ habitat and human impacts on river water quality, I was overwhelmed with questions by the students wanting to learn MORE!” Jane says.

It was then time for the second partnership to swing into gear. As part of OzHarvest’s FEAST program students at St Brigid’s investigated Global Goals 2, 12 and 13  and planted a vegetable garden during Term 3. Using the cooking kit provided by OzHarvest they were then able to hold three cooking days utilising their home-grown produce. Items made were sold at the school canteen.

“All funds raised were dedicated to the Hunter River Turtle and we are thrilled to say we have made a $300 donation to the Australian Reptile Park and the work it does to protect the species,” Kristen says.

On December 3 Kristen and St Brigid’s students travelled to the Australian Reptile Park to make their donation in person to Tim Faulkner. They were given a tour of the new turtle facilities nearing completion, and looked at a successful clutch of Manning River turtles in anticipation of how the breeding program will work.

“Tim tells us our $300 will go directly to the care and breeding program of the Hunter River Turtle. The whole Year 6 cohort is extremely proud of their achievements and our school has gone turtle mad,” Kristen says.

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Want to following their learning journey – it must be so much fun being part of this “sharing is caring” school

Mega-congratulations to the students at St Brigid’s and to the power of partnerships with Hunter Local Land Services, OzHarvest and NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. What a tremendous way to help save our endangered native wildlife.

#KreativeKoalasKids #Changemakers #ProjectBasedLearning #GlobalGoals

by Lynne Strong

Building agricultural literacy and supporting our young people to be ready for the jobs of the future

This experience has been profound for our students. It has facilitated critical thinking, in-depth discussions and provided a platform for our students to develop and refine their thoughts and thinking on issues affecting society today. The Hackathon generated ideas and language our students rarely use to express themselves. The clarity and conviction in their arguments was impressive. The entire process has stirred their creative juices and fostered dedication to finish both the Koala and the Archibull to a very high standard. They have spent all their spare time collaborating and working hard to ensure the projects are ready for submission. The sense of pride in their work is wonderful to see. I highly recommend the opportunity to participate in The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas.

Claudia Munday Teacher Penrith Valley LC

At Picture You in Agriculture we are committed to adding value to everyone we serve.

We support agriculture by future proofing the sector through

  • Building agricultural literacy
  • Inspiring pride in the contribution of farmers and rural and regional communities to Australia’s economic wellbeing, our social fabric and the the sector’s commitment to achieving climate positive agriculture
  • Succession planning. Identifying and developing emerging leaders in the sector and leveraging their capacity as role models to attract young people into agriculture

Agricultural literacy revolves around the ability to think critically and make value judgments about the impact of agriculture as an economic and environmental activity and the concurrent societal and political pressures that result from those judgments. An agriculturally literate person should be able to analyse and evaluate “trade-offs” to individuals and to society resulting from agricultural enterprises. The nature of the decisions and value judgments drive the agricultural content. Understanding of agriculture is demonstrated by the ability to enter into conversations about and make decisions in response to choices facing society. Source 


Learn more about the sustainability circle here 

We support the teachers we work with to empower their students to be critical and creative thinkers who are life long learners working together to be engaged and active participants in the communities they live, work and play in

As part of Picture You in Agriculture’s support of schools undertaking The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas in 2020, a series of workshops was rolled out in October for teachers and students.

First cab off the rank was the wonderful Kris Beazley, principal at the Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Education -Richmond Agricultural College, who held one day hack-a-thons in design thinking and imagineering.

“The aim of the hack-a-thon was to draw together the students’ prior learnings and understandings about the project parameters, their area of research, understanding of effective communication and project planning. Students developed ideas and concepts through a process of imagineering, clustering, consideration and feedback, and then these tested ideas formed a milestone map and resourcing and task allocation plan for their projects,” Kris says.

Four teams participated in the hack-a-thon, three involved with The Archibull Prize and one with Kreative Koalas. Setting the project tone for their Archies were Stage 4 students from Nepean Creative and Performing Arts who are studying sustainable fashion, Stage 4 students from Granville Boys who are studying water management in the Sydney catchment and Stage 4 and 5 students from the Penrith Valley Learning Centre who are studying land use challenges of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. Kreative Koala participants were the Stage 3 students from the Penrith Valley Learning Centre who are supporting koalas in the rural fringes of north-west Sydney.

“Our students embarked on an intense day of imagineering and prototyping that was tailored to our Archibull theme, zero textiles waste. Design thinking principles united with structured negotiations, constructive feedback and testing group ideas, and project parameters were rigorously explored, discussed and revisited. The result was a synthesised group production target and achievable project goals. We thank the Archibull Hackathon team for their passion, innovation and interest in the development of our project and our minds.”

Mrs Rowston, Nepean Creative and Performing Arts

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And what does their Archie look like

 

Students enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to their projects and to problem solve as part of a group. When asked what were three things they learned during the day, their responses included:

  • “collaboration – merging ideas – be willing to change and compromise”

  • “how to communicate effectively – listen/respect and use others ideas – easily collaborate”

  • “communication – teamwork – realistic ideas”

Kris believes the hack-a-thons developed a sense of collective commitment to the Archibull and Kreative Koalas projects.

“It is an intense day but also gives every student in the group a voice and the agency to act.”

Meet Penrith Valley Learning Centre’s Archie

 

A great outcome for agriculture supporting our young people to be ready for the jobs of the future

by Lynne Strong

The Archies and Kreative Koalas make television debut

The House of Wellness program on Channel 7 recently featured some extra special guests – students from St Catherine’s College at Singleton and their  Archies and Kreative Koalas!

The House of Wellness explores “the world of health and wellbeing, addressing your health concerns in an entertaining and informative format. From raising your kids, to staying fit, ageing gracefully, and keeping beautiful inside and out, as well as the A to Z of every vitamin under the sun, The House of Wellness is designed with one thing in mind – to help you ‘Live Well’.”

In his introduction to the November 2 episode, Luke Darcy linked wellness to the environment.

“2020 has made us re-think pretty much everything about the way we live from what we consume, our relationships with each other and the environment and the impact we have on the planet,”

Luke’s astute reflection is a mantra long held by the Archies and Kreative Koalas.

After a brief chat about The Archibald Prize Luke, and co-host Jo Stanley, segued expertly to The Archibull Prize and featured Lynne Strong talking about her vision for climate positive agriculture before segueing again to Lynne’s driving passion – Picture You in Agriculture.

Then it was into the classroom to showcase the Archies and Kreative Koalas in action, including asking the students how these programs have changed their perception of agriculture and the environment.

“I didn’t grow up on a farm but this has definitely made it a lot more fun,” said  Archies participant Phoebe .

“Its pretty exciting” declared Jessica

“For the forehead we are planning to put an earth with a lot of trees and bushes around the outside. So that’s saying that our planet grows a lot of plants and those plants are vital,” said Jacob.

The segment concluded with a plug for careers in agriculture.

“We have some of the best ag science and agronomy courses in the world right here and by 2030 it is estimated there will be around 48,000 new jobs in the rural sector, which is fantastic. It’s a great field to steer our kids towards,” Luke said.

“And it is girls who are leading the charge

They make up more than 56% of students studying agriculture and related courses.” Jo continued.

PYiA is committed to engaging students, young agriculturalists and future consumers in conversations about their vision for the future of food and farming and their role in it. Thanks to The House of Wellness that vision has reached yet another audience.

Watch the Archies and Kreative Koalas on The House of Wellness

Mega shout out to the students and teachers at St Catherine’s and the team at the House of Wellness who all did a superstar job of showing how exciting agriculture can be

 

 

 

by Lynne Strong

What has renewable energy got to do with boxer shorts? Let’s ask Gardeners Road Public School.

 The Kreative Koalas – Design a Bright Future Competition asks primary school students to investigate one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and, surprisingly, this year is the first time a school has taken the deep dive into SDG7 – Affordable and Clean Energy. Gardeners Road Public School, in Sydney’s east, is that school.

Teacher Suzie Barr explains why Gardeners Road students chose this SDG:

“We spent a lot of time researching sustainability issues in order to select the global sustainability goal we wanted to focus on throughout our Kreative Koalas journey. Students identified and discussed sustainable development goals that are relevant to our local area, in order to bring about awareness within the school and wider community. Sustainable Development Goal 7: Clean and Affordable Energy was one of them. We had a number of students begin to ask questions about the lights that are used at school and whether or not any of the school’s energy was powered by renewable sources, such as solar. As a group, the students recognised that this was topic they wanted to learn more about and that’s when the journey began.”

This journey would lead them to agriculture – and to the production of their jeans and boxer shorts!

Kreative Koalas director Lynne Strong connected Suzie with cotton farmer and renewable energy innovator Karin Stark and before long Karin was zooming into the classroom. Karin and her partner Jon grow irrigated cotton near Narromine in central-west NSW and in 2018 installed a 500kW solar, diesel hybrid irrigation pump, the largest in the country at the time.

“I really enjoyed speaking with Suzie’s class, about what we do – grow wheat, cotton, barley etc – and how we converted one of our diesel pumps over to solar/diesel to make the most of our free sunshine! It’s saving our business $180,000 a year in diesel costs and reduces 500 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere each year. Suzie had prepared the kids and they asked wonderful questions about where our cotton ends up, how much we grow (enough for 7 million boxer shorts) and about the benefits of using solar energy,” Karin says.

Gardeners Road students now have a greater appreciation of the role of renewable energy, farmers and agriculture in a sustainable future.

“Karin’s passion for climate action and renewable energy within agriculture has truly inspired us here at Gardeners Road! Her presentation was very educational and the images and information she shared throughout supported our students with developing their understanding of agriculture and the innovative ways it can be transformed (through the use of renewable energy) to mitigate climate change,” Suzie says.

For Karin, the opportunity to take her story to the open minds of the next generation was a powerful one.

“We want to inspire children to look to agriculture for fulfilling future careers and we can only do this by demonstrating the roles available in agriculture and the exciting innovations that are happening all the time to make farming more sustainable,” she says.

By starting their affordable and clean energy journey by asking if their school lights were solar powered, the inquiring students of Gardeners Road now have a deeper understanding of agriculture and a connection to their own world in the clothes they wear every day. This is the power of Kreative Koalas.

#KreativeKoalaKids #SDG7 #GlobalGoals

by Lynne Strong

Our Kreative Koala Kids are FEASTing

At Action4Agriculture  our school programs are designed to support teachers to empower young Australians to be problem solvers and creative thinkers, lifelong learners and informed and active citizens of the communities they live, work and play in.

We equally committed to ensuring young people in rural, regional and remote Australia have equal education opportunities as young people living in  urban environments. We are also part of a movement in Australia dedicated to #CollectiveImpact 

This is because we know beautiful synergies can happen when like-minded organisations come together for the greater good. In this tumultuous year of 2020 it is heartening to see OzHarvest’s FEAST program running alongside Kreative Koalas in many primary schools.

FEAST (standing for Food Education And Sustainability Training) is the flagship program from OzHarvest to teach primary school students about sustainability, food waste and nutrition using hands-on cooking and inquiry-based learning.

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Nina Charbon is the education communications coordinator for OzHarvest.

“FEAST started as a pilot program in 2018 and in 2019 went national and since its inception 220 schools have participated. Most of our schools are funded to do the program, which is an adaptable and flexible – for example it usually takes between 7 and 10 weeks but this can be customised for each school. FEAST is curriculum aligned and ticks a lot of boxes for teachers and schools don’t need a kitchen – we can set them up with a kitchen kit and an electric frypan and they can cook in the hall or anywhere convenient. Why wouldn’t you do the program?” she says.

Two schools who are participating in Kreative Koalas have done FEAST in previous years – Gardeners Road and Exeter Public – but this is no ordinary year and, in testament to the program’s flexibility, adaptations have been made.

“Our school [Gardener’s Road] participated in the OzHarvest FEAST program during Term 1 this year. We found FEAST to be very flexible, especially during remote learning (towards the end of Term 1 and the beginning of Term 2). We were able to adapt elements of the FEAST program and still implement learning experiences through online learning platforms, when students were learning from home.

We were hoping to complete the cooking element of the program during Term 3 however, with the department and health guidelines that were in place, we thought it would be best to wait.  Now that disruptions and restrictions have eased and more activities have been allowed to go ahead, both students and teachers are looking forward to cooking up a feast (pardon the pun haha).” Suzie Barr – Gardener’s Rd Public School  teacher .

Young Farming Champion Meg Rice recently interviewed FEAST creator Amelia Berner to learn more about the program and to understand why schools such as Gardeners Road are repeat participants.

“It’s about educating kids about healthy eating, food waste awareness and sustainability. In Australia over 7.3 million tonnes of food ends up in landfill each year and one third of this food waste comes from the home. Lessons given to students in the classroom will make big differences in the home and community.”

This ethos is mirrored in Kreative Koalas and it comes as no surprise another five schools are participating in both programs this year: Annangrove Public School, Medowie Christian School, Primbee Public School, St Brigid’s Primary School and St Mary’s North Public School. Here is what the teachers are saying:

“Kreative Koalas and FEAST are complementary programs and we will engage with them side by side to learn more about growing and preparing food in a sustainable way. Foods that we grow in our kindergarten garden (a community project we have begun in our Kreative Koalas program) will be used as much as possible when cooking and preparing meals as part of our FEAST program. We have also put in compost bins as part of our KK project so any food scraps in our FEAST program will go into our compost bins, and back into our gardens in order to grow (organically) more vegetables. Our goal is to create and continue this sustainable cycle.” Martha Atkins – Medowie Christian School

Read more about Medowie’s KK journey here

“As soon as we saw the OzHarvest’s FEAST program we knew it would be a great supplementary activity to coincide with our Kreative Koala project. Throughout the Kreative Koalas program the students have been sharing their knowledge with their families and I’m sure that this will also happen when we commence our FEAST program next term. Our goal is that we create in our little school what we would like to see happen on a worldwide scale.” Johanna Urio – Annangrove Public School

 

“For our school, these two programs go hand in hand. With the Kreative Koalas we began looking at SDG 15: Life on the Land. We have looked at land management, food production and sustainability. Our Year 4 students have taken this further with the investigations into habitat loss of our threatened species. We will combine aspects of both programs to educate our students on the benefits to not only themselves, but the wider community as well as native animals. We encourage the students to think globally and see how these small steps they make can have a greater impact. Ultimately, we hope we will be using the vegetables we have grown to make food items for sale in our school canteen.” Kirsten Jones – St Brigid’s Primary School

Kreative Koalas and FEAST complement each other, provide ongoing support for teachers and are bringing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to the fore.

“Both programs understand the importance of encouraging community engagement and provide opportunity for our students to have a voice and take action on important issues,” Amelia says.

Register for Kreative Koalas in 2021 here Register for FEAST here

by Lynne Strong

Agriculture in the Classroom – Students tackle Fake News

The joy of using agriculture as an educational tool is it can be used to teach everything on the Australian curriculum (including critical thinking skills) and help young people get jobs

Critical thinking skills are one of the top four employability skills 21st century employers want most.

Our research shows that young people want to significantly increase their creative and critical thinking skills This includes determining the difference between what’s real and what is “Fake News”

Our research has been complemented by the fabulous work of our partner  Western Sydney University in their study of News and Young Australians

As this article in The Conversation highlights, we live in an age of fake news and Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy.

The challenge for teachers is how do we better prepare young people to effectively navigate the complex and nuanced landscape of modern news and social media.

We are excited to be part of a team helping teachers do this using fake news in agriculture as an example.

Part of what the students will find out is what is fake news in Australia is not necessarily fake news in other countries. This helps to reinforce the message that there is not a one size fits all solution to the challenges our farmers face to grow food and natural fibres on the hottest, driest inhabited continent

What does a Fake News lesson plan look like?

A quick summary of it might look something like this  

  • Teachers ask the question, “What is Fake News?’
  • Students discuss their ideas.
  • Class teachers can facilitate the discussion by making a brainstorm of their answers.
  • Younger students, play the ‘Get Bad News’ game to help them understand the process of creating fake news and the effect it has globally;
  • Older students play the ‘BBC iReporter’ game for older classes.
  • As a class, google the following:
    • Hormones in milk in Australia
    • Hormones in chicken

Teachers might then invite the students to break into groups for a wider discussion and share their learnings with the community via their Archibull Prize ( secondary schools) or Kreative Koalas ( primary schools) digital learning journal

The aim of each task is for the students to create and present a short presentation of their findings at the end of the lesson

Tasks could look like this

  • Group 1 – Look at fake news as a concept. What is it? How does it happen? Can they create a checklist to help other students to spot fake news?
  • Group 2 – Investigate what the media gains by spreading fake news. Present an explanation of their findings.
  • Group 3 – What’s a credible resource? What’s credible science? Students investigate these 2 headings and provide short explanations of both.

(Group 2 and 3 could also create visuals (such as a poster or comic strip) to accompany their work.

  • Group 4 – Invite the students to discuss the ethics around deceptive advertising and its consequences. Students can use the Consequence Wheel for this exercise

Some resources the teachers might use:

News and Young Australians

We live in an age of ‘fake news’. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy

Beyond fact-checking: 5 things schools should do to foster news literacy

The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences

We look forward to sharing the students agricultural flavoured journey to detect biases and agendas in media and feel empowered to distinguish fact from fiction, be savvy consumers, and learn to advocate for public good?

And this very important feedback from a teacher. Another question agriculture can ask itself.

Is our succession plan and capacity to spark interest in careers in agriculture reaching young people where they are at

by Lynne Strong

NEWS FROM THE MOOS AND KREATIVE KOALA KIDS

The 2020 COVID  ready editions of The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas – Design a Bright Future are off and running in 34 schools from Tasmania to Queensland, and here is a wrap of their first few weeks in action.

As you can see the Moos are definitely in the News

In the media

Caragabal has received rain! This momentous occasion for students and families of Caragabal Public School in western NSW made ABC headlines. Kids spoke about the breaking of the drought and how sustainable practices are shaping their farming future.

Also talking to the ABC about Kreative Koalas was teacher Martha Atkins from Medowie Christian School in the Port Stephens region. The students also shared their journey to #ZeroHunger with the Port Stephens Examiner

Medowie took out the title of Grand Champion Community Project for Change in 2019, so this is definitely a school to watch out for.

The Port Stephen Koala Hospital will be opening on September 25, and radio station NEWFM radio, previewed the event, which guest stars the Grand Champion Koala artwork from Raymond Terrace Public School.

On our blog

Medowie also featured on our PYiA blog (we love to celebrate our schools and feature them regularly) discussing their goals for 2020 with zero hunger and cookbooks!

Meanwhile, James Erskine Public School reflected on what they had learnt from Kreative Koalas in 2019 and how it has affected their school twelve months down the track.

St Catherine’s Catholic College at Singleton told us how COVUD has had some positive changes, allowing teacher Joanna Towers extra time to study and to investigate the world of regenerative agriculture.

Innisfail State College, who is taking part in both the Archies and Kreative Koalas, is improving critical thinking through collaboration, connection and communication.

Carlingford West Public School met a special group of young women from our Young Farming Champions program who totally busted their stereotype of what a farmer looks like.

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Webinars and resources

Thank you to John Holloway from the Murray Darling Basin Authority Education Team for his very well received Deep Dive into Water webinars and the extremely engaged students who joined him. See the story here. John will be available to run more webinars for Stage 3, Stage 4 and Stage 5 after the holidays.

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Thanks also to our wonderful collaborator Kris Beazley from Richmond Agricultural College – Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Education who is running eight one-day Hack-a-thons, focussing on design thinking train the trainer workshops, for teachers participating in our programs.

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Following on from their Caragabal Public School story the ABC has created a teacher resource on the breaking of the drought.

Expressions of interest are now open for 2021

If you are a secondary school you can submit an EOI for The Archibull Prize HERE 

If you are a primary school you can submit an EOI for Kreative Koalas HERE 

Visit our website to find out more

Shout out to our supporting partners who are empowering young people to be critical and creative thinkers and changemakers ready for the jobs of the future.

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by Lynne Strong

Delivering on what young people want – A webinar with the Murray Darling Basin Authority helps students understand Australia’s water

Did you know the Murray-Darling Basin region produces food for 40 million people (almost double Australia’s total population)?

Or that it is home to 2.6 million people, over 40 Aboriginal nations and 16 internationally recognised wetlands?

Did you know this mighty river-system actually has naturally low volumes of water – so low that the amount of water flowing out of the mouth of the Murray Darling in one year is the same as the Amazon’s flow in one day!

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PYiA connects learning to real world issues and our surveys show our young people are particularly interested in learning about how we ensure everyone has access to clean water and the role of our river catchments in delivering this .

One of our aims is to work with supporting partners to introduce these young people to experts and so, in order to deliver on what our young people want, PYiA recently facilitated a series of webinars for schools participating in Kreative Koalas and The Archibull Prize. The webinars were hosted by John Holloway from the education team at the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA).

John Holloway showing the students how much fresh water there is on earth if the earth was one metre across 

“We love virtual presentations and often it’s the only way to do them when the Murray-Darling Basin is over a million square kilometres. I love the look of understanding when kids can connect to new knowledge and see something with new eyes. We use water everyday but we rarely stop to think how special it is,” John says.

John tailored his presentations to both primary and secondary students.

“For Years 5 and 6 our key message is knowledge and awareness of the Basin as a special national asset. We all know, and can picture, the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, or Uluru—but despite its vital significance many Australians are oblivious to the Murray-Darling Basin. It’s such a massive and diverse system – really a living thing – and we struggle to get our heads around it. With older students we like to get the message across that water management, like many of our big 21st century challenges, is very complex and often contested. There are no simple answers – but this is something that all Australians are in together,” he says.

Kreative Koala participants Caragabal Public School and St Joseph’s Primary School at Grenfell fall within the catchment for the Murray-Darling Basin and water is always front of mind for these students. Caragabal recently celebrated the coming of the rain in an ABC story, and both schools found particular relevance in the seminar.

Danielle Schneider is a teacher at St Joseph’s and is leading her students through sustainability with a specific focus on water management.

“The highpoints from the webinar included speaking directly with John Holloway who was exceptionally knowledgeable and provided the students with information on the importance of water and sustainable water use and management within the Murray-Darling Basin.

The key messages the students took home were that there is a finite amount of water available on Earth and, therefore, it is essential to look after the water we have, sustain this, and recycle it where possible. Another key message was that the Murray Darling Basin Authority and the Australian States work to control Murray-Darling Basin water and we must all use it wisely and appreciate it. Overall, the webinar educated students about the Murray-Darling Basin. This linked well to our class studies based on sustainability and water use. It provided students with access to valuable input not always easily accessible to us in the past,” she says.

The MBDA seminars were a wonderful way to connect to students participating in The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas, and we look forward to facilitating further webinars in the future, guided and informed by what our young people want.

#SDG14 #SDG15 #KreativeKoalaKids

 

by Lynne Strong

Kreative Koala Kids using cookbooks and big ideas to achieve zero hunger

After their successful foray into the world of Kreative Koalas in 2019, when they were awarded Grand Champion Community Project for Change for raising awareness of healthy waterways, Medowie Christian School are this year tackling zero hunger.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger is being investigated by students for the first time in 2020 and teacher Martha Atkins is excited to see changes in student thinking already.

 “One of our boy’s fathers works with AOG Medowie Foodway and he told us that Foodway supports 1500 families in Port Stephens, which is 10% of our population. This  was an eye-opening statistic for students. They thought zero hunger only applied to homeless people. They did not realise there were people and families who had a house and jobs who were experiencing difficult times. It has not been a hard job to get them to engage with this goal – they are excited about doing something to help.” Martha says

Whilst the students initially wanted to create a food bank within their school one of the things the students learnt from participating in KK 2019 was if you want to have community impact it’s important to meet the needs of the community and so began a journey of community consultation. The students created a survey which they shared with their family and friends.

“The feedback from the surveys showed us the community felt a larger priority was teaching our community about growing fruit and vegetables in a sustainable way and that has become our focus,” Martha says.

Complementing Kreative Koalas, Medowie Christian School is simultaneously participating in OzHarvest’s FEAST program, which aims to inspire “kids to eat healthy, waste less and be change-makers in their local community.” The final product of FEAST will be a school cookbook.

 “FEAST will tie in really well with Kreative Koalas and zero hunger.  We are a K-12 school so we have an agriculture teacher and our own school plot so we grow a lot of our own vegetables and will be using our own resources. We are looking at making our school garden a sustainable garden.” Martha says.

Another surprising outcome from Medowie’s community survey was the number of people who did not know about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

“60% of those surveyed didn’t know of, or couldn’t explain, the SDGs and when the kids saw that they thought ‘oh that’s easy – we can fix that one  The students are making a video about SDGs and are enthusiastic about sharing information on their blog. “Although we’ve chosen zero hunger, if we want to see real change, we need to make all the goals famous.” Martha says.

Congratulations Medowie Christian School on your wonderful start to the 2020 Kreative Koalas program – we look forward to watching your journey and your contribution towards Zero Hunger. AND raising awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals and inspiring others to join the movement to achieve them.

You can follow the students on their blog here 

Listen to Martha Atkins share the students journey with ABC Newcastle

#KreativeKoalaKids #GobalGoals #SDGs #bthechange #behaviourchange #sustainability

 

 

by Lynne Strong

Keep your “Eyes” on St Catherine’s Catholic School

Students at St Catherines at Singleton celebrate the arrival of their Archie 

COVID-19 has dominated the way we work in 2020, creating challenges and uncertainty; but with it has also come opportunities for new entrants to our in-school programs The Archibull Prize (TAP) and Kreative Koalas (KK).

TAP and KK are operating under a new model this year, which encourages communities of practice across primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions, business and government. One school taking on the challenge for the first time is St Catherine’s Catholic College at Singleton, under the guidance of agriculture teacher Joanna Towers.

“One good thing about this crisis [coronavirus lockdown] is I have had time to study at home and listen to a range of webinars in my own time. It has opened up a whole new world for me – soil health, regenerative agriculture, carbon in soils. At the moment I am into dung beetles and it’s become my goal to get them back to the school farm.” Joanna says

The 35 hectare school farm has previously had all but 4 hectares leased to a third party but this year the lease will revert in entirety to the school.

“How we will manage that land has given me the impetus to put new learnings into place,” Joanna says.

In a normal year the students of St Catherine’s would have pigs and cattle ready for the Sydney Royal Easter Show and its cancellation brought great disappointment to the school.

“I wanted something different and something the students could look forward to.  I had always been aware of The Archibull Prize and always looked at the final products with amazement, but I thought the project was too big. Now we have an art teacher on board to provide creative genius and a new direction for the school farm, and are participating in both The Archies and Kreative Koalas!” Joanna says

St Catherine’s tasted success with PYiA when they joined the Careers Competition in 2019 where one of their students, Hallee Tanzer, won the Years 7 to 10 section. Joanna found this competition, and the resume writing competition that is part of The Archibull Prize , to be a great asset for her students.

“Glencore [mining company] is a major employer in Singleton and recently they advertised 40 positions and got 1800 applicants. The Cultivate your Dream Career Competition will give  the students skills in resume writing to make that important first impression. For example, it’s all very well to say to an employer you are a team player but it’s the concrete evidence of those skills that is important. Students may not realise the skills they learn in school are transferable to the workplace and this competition helped them make that connection.” Joanna says

St Catherine’s will be joined on their 2020 Archibull Prize and their  Kreative Koalas journey by Young Farming Champion Tim Eyes, himself a promoter of sustainable and ethical agriculture, and we look forward to watching their vision for a new school farm evolve.