Primary school kids love to get their hands dirty, don’t they? Certainly around 130 students from Albert Park Primary School, Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School and Corndale Public School seemed to be having a ball earlier this week when they got a day off class to mess around in the mud planting trees and playing environmental games at Albert Park School.
On the bank of the Wilsons River, kids tried their hands at water quality testing, water and recycling relays, being ‘biodiversity detectives’, learning about koalas and of course planting trees.
Some of the heartening feedback included ‘it is important to learn about water and catchments because we are the future and we need to stop polluting our water’ from one student and ‘we need to plant trees so animals can live in them and so we can breathe’ from another.
The day was part of the Wilsons River Catchment Schools Education and Restoration Project, which is funded by the NSW Environmental Trust. Rous Water are working with a range of partners including Lismore City Council, Landcare, EnviTE, North East Waste, Dorroughby Environment Centre, Friends of the Koala and local schools to establish restoration areas along the Wilsons River where students can plant trees and learn about issues associated with the environment.
This project is unique in that it recognises the critical need to involve schools and young people in restoring our waterways, and the collaborative partnership approach required to achieve it.
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