There are many environmental and cultural celebration dates throughout the year that tie in seamlessly with the River Detectives program. This is great news as finding ways to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ is gold for time-poor teachers and crowded curriculums.
To support you, at the end of each term we will distribute some inspiration directing you to resources on the River Detectives website that are most relevant to exploring the events coming up in the following term. This is designed to help you with your planning and save your precious time.
If the advice is not needed/relevant simply file away my email or delete it – there is never any obligation to do more than the basics with the RD program.
Term Two planning inspo:
- Paint Australia Beautiful mural competition; Closing on May 30, this competition invites students to create nature-inspired murals that capture their vision for a cleaner, more sustainable Australia, focusing on litter, waste and biodiversity impact. It could be a great chance to brighten up your school and share the love/learning about our special waterways at the same time!
- Outdoor Classroom Day, May 8; This is the perfect day to head to your adopted waterway (if you can). You could do a habitat survey to assess riparian habitat and upload your results to the website. All instructions are in the field manual. For a more visual guide see here. Or you might just like to gently ease into Term 2 closer to home with some nature play activities from our nature study activity matrix.
- Reconciliation Week, May 27 – June 3; This year’s theme, Bridging Now to Next urges us to look ahead and continue the push forward together at time when Australia faces uncertainty in its reconciliation journey. Explore some of the short, engaging – and most importantly local videos – on our website. All videos are Victorian, many will be regional and some may even be specific to your waterway/country, exploring the importance of waterways to Aboriginal culture, the way they have and continue to care for them, and the innovative ways they are working with NRM agencies to manage waterways.
- World Environment Day June 5; explore this year’s celebration calls for collective action to tackle plastic pollution. Watch this short video at the World Environment Day website for a preview of the plastic problem as countries prepare to meet this August to negotiate a global treaty to end plastic pollution. Locally, you could do a litter survey at your waterway, in your schoolyard or even in lunchboxes and then come up with strategies to minimise plastics. There are some eye-opening videos on the RD website about ocean pollution and the issue of microplastics. Your students might also like to see how Victory Christian College recently learnt about plastics in their local waterway.
- Plastic Free July; Could be the perfect way to continue the learning about plastics and keep the action going.
As always we’d love to see photos or work samples of anything you do so flick them through to your regional coordinator. And if you find a great resource that’s not on the River Detectives website let us know!
