The Water Story - Artful activities for students & rangers - NSW

A group of Australian National University design students recently joined in the ACT Young Rangers Workshop run by Tam Connor (Education Coordinator) and Penny Cooper (Trainee Director of On-ground Works) at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms for a very fruitful encounter.

In weekly contact with Laura Fisher (Creative Adaptions Partnerships) through their semester, this highly imaginative crew have been developing a learning kit about the water cycle, containing activities and prompt cards suited to Year 2 classrooms. Their key reference point has been the primary school Regenerative Science curriculum ‘The Water Story’, and its protagonist ‘Wanda the Water Droplet’ being co-developed by The Scots College and TMI. The students were able to ‘user test’ their prototype designs with the Young Rangers, gathering valuable feedback from both children and parents. Here's what they had to say about the experience:

“This trip was a highlight of our course and such an eye-opening experience getting to see and learn about Mulloon and their practices in person. Together as a group, we discovered where Wanda the water droplet is in our environment, we got to learn about and engage with the silt model and got to test out the learning activities we’ve been working on in class on those who attended.

Over the past couple of months, we have been working with Mulloon to develop a series of educational activities aimed at teaching children about how the environment around them works, and why it is so important to keep our landscape healthy. Being able to put our activities into action was such a privilege and we had so much fun doing it! Getting to see and take in the serene landscape on the farm was definitely a highlight for us. Overall, the learning experience we had was invaluable and we are much looking forward to visiting again!”.

We love your enthusiasm Maddy Brewster, Luke Farrow, Sophie Andrews, Molly Dixon and Tara Lyons!!!

This student engagement has been supported by the NSW Government through its Environmental Trust through the ‘Landscape Rehydration Capacity Building: developing curriculum’ project, as well as the Australian Government through the 'Modelling Landscape Rehydration for Catchments, Communities and Curriculum’ Citizen Science project.