Environmental Education Archives - Page 3 of 7 - Australian Environmental Education

September 15, 2021September 28, 2021

School Holiday Program

Discover What’s in your Backyard this school holidays. With the weather warming up it is the perfect time to explore your own backyard and local area. Australian Environmental Education has a range of FREE programs to keep your kids busy during the school holidays.

FREE YouTube LIVE event

From backyards to bushland there is a variety of animals living near you. Learn to identify animals from the clues that they leave behind and discover the diversity of animals in your local area.

Children will the meet live Stick Insects and a live Green Tree Frog

More resources to help you explore

The What’s in your Backyard resources are designed to help you explore the amazing wildlife in your local area. Look for the clues that are left behind to discover more about these animals and what you can do to protect them.

What’s in your Backyard activities

Focus on Frogs

Australia is home to about 240 species of native Amphibians, all of which are frogs. In urban areas, human development has reduced the natural habitat available to frogs. The Focus on Frogs video provides information and skills that will enable you and your child to discover what frogs live in your backyard or local area.

Focus on Frogs resources

Minbeasts in your Garden

Minibeasts in your Garden explores the diverse world of minibeasts. Discover why minibeasts are important and learn how find them in your garden or local park. The video and activities will help you to identify common groups of backyard minibeasts and provides information and skills to conduct your own minibeasts investigation.

Minibeasts in your Garden resources

Noises in the Night

You don’t see many of the animals that live in your local area because they are nocturnal. Often it is the Noises in the Night that give us a clue to the nocturnal species that are living in our local area. Other times it is the Scats, Track or Traces that animals leave behind that help us discover who is living in our backyard.

Listen to the Noises in the Night

Science Experiments

Check out these fun and educational science experiments. Create some amazing school holiday fun using some simple household ingredients. You and your kids will have lots of science fun extracting DNA from stawberries, making red cabbage indicactor or making a sugar snake.

Easy Science Experiments

Keep safe, stay in your local area.

September 2, 2021June 11, 2023

Threatened Species Day

Threatened Species Day is commemorated across the Australia on 7 September every year to raise awareness of plants and animals at risk of extinction. Threatened Species Day acknowledges the death of the last remaining Thylacine, Tasmanian tiger at Hobart Zoo in 1936. It is a day to reflect on what you can do to make a difference.

Australia is home to more than 500,000 animal and plant species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Over the last 200 years, more than 100 animal and plant species have become extinct. In NSW there are almost 1000 animal and plant species at risk of extinction.

Threatened Species Day is a time to focus on or native plants, animals, and ecosystems and look at how we can protect them into the future. I have a range of resources available to help you deliver programs for Threatened Species Day on the following topic areas.

Biodiversity

What’s in your Backyard

Sustainability

Virtual Excursions

There are also a range of live and on demand virtual excursions available. Join me to talk about Threatened Species with these live interactive session. Discover some amazing animals only found in Australia. Students will also find out what they can do to protect them.

Grey Nurse Shark — Copyright @ John Turnbull

Book now 7 September: 9.30 am & 12pm

Focus on Frogs

Australia is home to about 240 species of native Amphibians, all of which are frogs. In urban areas, human development has reduced the natural habitat available to frogs. The Focus on Frogs workshop provides information and skills that will enable you and your child to discover what frogs live in your backyard or local area.

Minibeasts in your Garden

Minibeasts in your Garden explores the diverse world of minibeasts. Discover why minibeasts are important and learn how find them in your garden or local park. The program will help you to identify common groups of backyard minibeasts and provides information and skills to conduct your own minibeasts investigation.

September 2, 2021September 28, 2021

The Journey continues

This Threatened Species Day marks the second anniversary of the creation of Australian Environmental Education. The last two years have been full of many challenges and just as many rewarding experiences.

In the last 2 years I have written almost 150 webpages and 60 blog posts. I have really enjoyed creating all the content for the website and to see the information being used by so many people. There have been over 65,000 visitors viewing 120,000 pages and 4 million impressions on Google.

The What’s in your Backyard series of videos on YouTube have been watched almost 10,000 times. These videos are especially popular at the moment with students learning from home.

What’s in your Backyard videos

In addition to creating resources for my website, I have also developed resources for the Junior Landcare Learning Centre.

Creating a Wildlife Garden

Creating a wildlife Garden is a 5 part program to help you plan and plant a wildlife habitat at your school, home or local area.

Water and Catchments

Explore the importance of water, water usage and water saving ideas with the Every drop counts activity.

Every drop counts, being water wise!

Water moves through the environment by the Water Cycle. This activity investigates the journey of a river through the catchment. Follow water through the environment and explore the changes to water quality over time. This learning activity is the first part of a sequence of 5 individual learning activities focused on Catchment Management.

Caring for our Oceans

Our coasts are impacted by our actions on land. Rubbish and microplastics can be found washed up on almost every Australian beach. These are great activities to do with your high school students.

Plastic and rubbish washed up on the shore from oceans

The Beach Survey provides a starting point to understand the types of rubbish in the marine environment.

Beach Survey

The Beach Clean up can help you work together as a team and community to remove this of rubbish.

Beach Clean Up

I have also been delivering onsite and online programs to schools, vacation care centres and students learning from home. Combined, I have delivered almost 250 program reaching over 20,000 students. I’m looking forward to what the next 12 months brings and can’t wait to be able to deliver onsite programs again.

What a journey the last 2 years have been!

July 27, 2021July 27, 2021

Online Science Classes

Get ready for National Science Week with a range of online earth and environmental science programs. These programs are suitable for students in the classroom or learning from home. It doesn’t matter if you are a teacher or parent there is a program perfect for you.

Class Programs

My Journey Beneath the Waves

My Journey Beneath the Waves: Diving Sydney’s Rocky Reefs takes you and your students on an exploration of the marine environment. The temperate waters around Sydney are home to a variety of habitats including kelp beds and sponge gardens. These are wonderful place to dive and discover the diversity of animals that live there.

Tuesday 10 August at 10am & 2pm

What’s in your Backyard

What’s in your Backyard: discover some of the amazing animals that live in your backyard. Explores the diversity of animals that lives in your local area by looking for the clues that are left behind. Students will look at local animals and find out what they can do to protect them.

Composite images of a cockatoo, frog and spider web

Wednesday 11 August at 10am & 2pm

Stories in the Stone

Take a journey back in time to the beginning of the Earth 4.6 Billion Years ago. We will explore the changes to the earth over that time and the evolution of life. This journey focuses on the diversity of Australian animals that are found nowhere else in the world.

Thursday 12 August at 10am & 2pm

Outschool

Outschool is an innovative education platform that offers a variety of engaging, small-group classes online. Unlike traditional classes, Outschool classes give kids the unique opportunity to explore their interests in-depth via interactive, live video by experienced, independent educators.

Marvellous Marine Life

Explore the amazing diversity of animals with the Marvellous Marine Life workshop. Take a journey beneath the waves to explore this wonderful world. Learn about some of these incredible animals, their adaptions and habitats.

Tuesday 10 August at 11am & 3pm

Invertebrate Investigations

Invertebrate Investigations explores the diverse world of invertebrates. Discover why invertebrates are important and learn how investigate the invertebrates in your own backyard.

Composite image of different invertebrates; cicada, golden orb weaving spider and oleander butterfly

Wednesday 11 August at 11am & 3pm

Ancient Australian Animals

Take a journey through time to discover some of Australia’s ancient animals. Become a Palaeontologist and look at real fossils to find out about the animals that called Australia home.

Thylacaleo skeleton from Naracoorte Caves SA

Thursday 12 August at 11am & 3pm

It doesn’t matter if you are a teacher or parent there is a program perfect for you.

July 19, 2021July 20, 2021

Education Week 2021

Australian Environmental Education has a range of programs to celebrate Education Week between 26 – 30 July. Come on a journey with Karen exploring this years theme of Lifelong Learning.

I have always grown up with a sense of wonder about nature and our place within it. I strive to discover, explore and learn everyday.

Virtual Excursions

Join Karen from Australian Environmental Education while she shares for lifelong learning journey. During the live and interactive virtual excursions Karen will share some SCUBA diving stories, explore what’s living in our backyards and show you specimens from her rock and fossil collection.

My Journey Beneath the Waves

Monday 26 July at 2pm & Tuesday 27 July at 10am

What’s in your Backyard

What’s in your Backyard: discover some of the amazing animals that live in your backyard this World Environment Day. Explores the diversity of animals that lives in your local area by looking for the clues that are left behind. Students will look at local animals and find out what they can do to protect them.

Tuesday 27 July at 2pm & Wednesday 28 at 10am

Stories in the Stone

Wednesday 28 at 2pm & Thursday 29 at 10am

BOOK an EDUCATION WEEK virtual excursion

Online Learning resources

Australian Environmental Education has online learning resources to help you teach a range of earth and environmental science concepts. These resources include web pages, printable activities, videos and outside learning activities.

Be a lifelong learner with these resources

July 9, 2021July 14, 2021

Online Learning Resources

Focus on Frogs

Australia is home to about 240 species of native Amphibians, all of which are frogs. In urban areas, human development has reduced the natural habitat available to frogs. The Focus on Frogs workshop provides information and skills that will enable you and your child to discover what frogs live in your backyard or local area.

Focus on Frogs resources

Minbeasts in your Garden

Minibeasts in your Garden resources

The Story of a River

Follow the journey of water down the river through the catchment to the sea. Water is essential for all forms of life and the small amount of available freshwater create competing pressures for our water resources. Different land uses in a catchment have different impacts out our precious water resources. Discover the impacts of land clearing, agriculture and urbanisation on our waterways.

The Story of a River resources

Online Learning Resources

Rocks and Fossils are fascinating to kids and adults alike. The resources looks at plate tectonics, inside the earth, weathering, soils, fossils and Australian dinosaurs and megafauna. This information will help you teach these topics to your students.

Rocks and Fossils resources

Water is essential for all life and is the most abundant substance on Earth. Water covers 75% of the earth’s surface, however only a very small amount is fresh water that can be used directly by people, animals and plants

Water resources

Activities

I have created a set of fun and activities to supplement the educational resources section on this website.

Virtual Excursions

Australian Environmental Education can run a Virtual Excursion linked to these resources. We can deliver all our onsite incursions as Virtual Excursions as a class learning from home or at school.

Request a Virtual Excursion

June 21, 2021June 26, 2021

Minibeasts in the Classroom

Live minibeasts make a great addition to any classroom or home and are easy to maintain. This is a great way to bring nature into the classroom. You can use these animals to teach about adaptations, life cycles and habitats.

I recently went to a Sydney childcare centre to update their stick insect enclosure. It was a wonderful centre that had a focus on nature play. They had adapted an old reptile tank for their stick insects and wanted to have a variety of species to enrich the experience for the students. We looked at the size of the tank to determine what combination of species would suit.

I had an audience of 4 year olds while I was cleaning the tank and getting ready to put the in new animals. I then presented 2 short sessions for the kids on minibeasts and they help me add the animals into their new home.

These are some species that are fun and easy to look after.

Spiny Leaf Insects
Children’s Stick Insects
Goliath Stick Insects
Crown Stick Insects
Australia Leaf Insects
Giant Burrowing Cockroaches
Garden Snails
Silk Worms

Some species will happily live in the same enclosure given the correct conditions. Make sure you always keep predators like praying mantis and spiders in separate enclosures.

If you are in Sydney let me know if you are interested in setting up Minibeast in the classroom.

June 1, 2021June 11, 2023

World Oceans Day

The more we learn about oceans and the marine environment, the more we can do to understand these link and protect the incredible diversity of species and habitats.

Education Resources

Oceans contain the greatest diversity of life on Earth. Habitats range from the freezing polar regions to the warm waters of the coral reefs, deep sea hydrothermal vents to shallow seagrass beds and beautiful sponge gardens to giant kelp forests, marine organisms are found everywhere.

Diving Stories

Marine resources

Infographic on microplastics in the oceans

Caring for our Oceans

Australia is home to the over 10,000 beaches and no part of Australia is more than 1,000km from the ocean. Our coasts are impacted by our actions on land. Rubbish and microplastics can be found washed up on almost every Australian beach.

dead turtle entangled in fishing nets on the oceans — Copyright: Maxim Blinkov

Pollution and rubbish get washed into our rivers and waterways with stormwater runoff and end up on our coasts and oceans. Over 75% of this rubbish is plastic. Plastics in the environment can take hundreds of years to break down, thereby impacting marine species for generations.

I created the Caring for our Oceans activities for the Landcare Learning Centre. These are great activities to do with your students.

Beach Survey

Beach Clean up

Remember everything we do on land has impacts on the marine environment. Follow the journey of water down the river through the catchment to the sea with the Story of a River.

May 5, 2021May 10, 2021

World Environment Day 2021

It is time to celebrate our marine and terrestrial environments with World Environment Day on June 5 and World Environment Day on June 8. The World Environment Day theme for 2021 is Ecosystem Restoration. The World Oceans Day theme for 2021 is Ocean: Life and Livelihoods.

Virtual Excursions

World Environment Day: Friday 4 June at 10am and 2pm

World Oceans Day: Tuesday 8 June at 10am and 2pm

BOOK NOW

Free Education resources

Help restore your local ecosystem this World Environment day with these great activities. Creating a Wildlife Habitat is a 5 part program that can help you plan and plant a wildlife habitat at your school, home or local area.

Focus on Frogs

In urban areas, human development has reduced the natural habitat available to frogs. The Focus on Frogs workshop provides information and skills that will enable you to discover what frogs live in your backyard or local area.

Minibeasts in your Garden

Noises in the Night

You don’t see many of the animals that live in your local area because they are nocturnal. Often it is the Noises in the Night that give us a clue to the nocturnal species that are living in our local area.

Marine Environments

The Marine Environments is divided up into three main ecosystems; Oceans, Coral Reefs and Estuaries. Our oceans make up 71% of the earth’s surface and they contain the greatest diversity of life on Earth.

The Deep Sea

The deep sea starts where the sunlight starts to fade, around 200m below the surface of the ocean. A twilight zone extends down to 1,000m, after which almost no light penetrates.

April 8, 2021April 29, 2021

Get your garden growing

Autumn is a great time to start planting your garden. The soil is still warm enough to encourage root growth and weather is mild reducing water stress. Young plants have a better chance to settle in and become established before summer heat arrives. I’ve been working on the garden below for a while and took the opportunity during the cooler weather to add new plants, mulch and do some landscaping.

I helped write some programs on Creating a Wildlife Habitat for the Junior Landcare Learning Centre. This 5 part program can help you plan and plant a wildlife habitat at your school, home or local area.

Rainbow Lorikeets in flowering gum — Rainbow Lorekeet

Creating a native wildlife habitat is a great way to ensure the protection of native wildlife, from the smallest insects to birds, reptiles, mammals and frogs.

Projects and Grants

NSW Schools are now invited to apply for a grant of up to $600 to purchase native trees and shrubs. The Tree Levy is an annual grants scheme funded by Federation to offset the environmental impact of the union’s activities.

Apply Now

If you are in Sydney you can register for the Cooling the Schools project through Greening Australia.

Cooling the Schools: Creating cooler and greener schools where children and nature thrive

We are working with students to add thousands of plants to community spaces and schools across Greater Sydney.

Incorporate existing features into your wildlife habitat design, including established trees, rainwater tanks and ponds. Make sustainable choices by using what you’ve already got.

Don’t forget to include plenty of spaces for animals to hide.

Attracting wildlife to you backyard

Attracting birds to your backyard

Attract birds to your backyard by creating a garden that will provide food, shelter and nesting materials and sites. Local flowering plants and fruit trees provide birds with nectar and seeds. To provide birds with some protein rich food, use mulch to encourage worms, insects and grubs to thrive. Plant dense prickly native shrubs for shelter, hang up nesting boxes and install a bird bath.

Create a frogs friendly backyard

Encourage frogs to come to live and breed in your backyard. Create a small shallow pond in an area that is partly shaded. Include thick ground hugging plants around part of the pond to provide areas of warmer and cooler water. Your pond will need some sunlight to encourage algae and other plants that provide food for tadpoles. Make sure the banks slope gently so that the frogs can get out. Add some rocks and logs to provide shelter for adult frogs.

Minibeasts in your backyard

Not all bugs are pests. Good bugs pollinate plants, break down dead flora and fauna, aerate the soil and provide for other wildlife. They can even help keep harmful pests away. Create an inviting environment for good bugs by planting plenty of native plants, wildflowers and herbs and use chemical-free pest control when the pests do creep in.