After a day of creativity our campers still had the energy for some night activities. Their writing and acting talents were put to the test during a performance of Fractured Fairy Tales. Very impressive results for limited preparation time! I am trying to capture everyone on film, but some of our students are a little elusive and camera shy…
Have you immersed your students in nature this year? We would love to help you with your next excursion and have a range of new and existing programs in a variety of subject areas to inspire, engage and enhance the learning of your students.
As an added bonus – all visiting teachers will receive 4hrs (BOSTES registered) field work professional learning!
Our NSW Environmental Education Centres are all staffed by trained teachers who have a passion for outdoor learning and specialist skills environmental and sustainability education.
Prices listed are for Public Schools only.
Stage 1
| Program | Syllabus | Price |
| Reptile Recon. | Science & Tech – Natural Environment: Living World | $10/student |
| Past in the Present | History – The Past in the Present | $10/student |
| Where is Nessy (Incursion) | Science & Tech – Natural Environment: Living World | Flat Day Rate – $500 (max 60 students) |
Stages 2 & 3
| Program | Syllabus | Price |
| Aboriginal Education | History – First Contacts, Community and Remembrance | $15/student (includes Aboriginal Presenter) |
| Aboriginal Education (Incursion) | History – First Contacts, Community and Remembrance | Flat Day Rate – $900 (max 90 students, includes Aboriginal Presenter) Call Brewongle for Details |
| Barefoot Lawrence | History – First Contacts, Community and Remembrance | $10/student |
| Tawny Tragedy | Science & Tech- Natural Environment: Living World / Working Scientifically | $10/student |
| PhotoVoice (Incursion) | Visual Arts & Literacy | Flat Day Rate – $500 (max 60 students) |
| Art in the Environment (Incursion) | Creative Arts & Science & Tech: Living World | Flat Day Rate – $500 (max 60 students) |
In addition to our day programs and incursions, we also have camp facilities and programs for school groups.
Please phone Brewongle on 02 45 79 1136 for further information or to have one of our staff present at your staff meeting.
Earthkeepers is an old world, mystical ecology program for Stage 2 students and some little munchkins from Boronia Park are now well on their way to becoming Level 1 Earthkeepers after completing our 3 day camp. We were impressed with their energy and enthusiasm and can see that they now have a broader understanding of how humans and natural systems rely on each other.
Thanks so much to our parent helpers and teachers Angie and Josh for putting in the hard yards over the three days to give the students the best possible camp!
Enjoy the photos and I hope that the students discover the final meanings of E.M. in their studies back at school.
If you would like to run Earthkeepers at your school please see the program details here.
The creativity was flowing into the evening of our annual Writers Camp. Our talented group of year six students created some “Fractured Fairytales” and performed them for everone’s amusement.
We were so impressed with the acting talents of all these young writers. After much grinning and giggling, We devoured some supper and headed to cabins before the rain began. Many stories were told into the night – especially by the boys cabin, but most were snoring and dreaming by 11pm. This is very impressive for first night of camp!
Enjoy the photos and there will be more to come – as Day 2 is our famous author day with Suzanne Gervay, Pamela Freeman and RIchard Tulloch. Even as I write, students are ensconced in workshops and soaking up the creativity!
Our annual “Writers in the Environment Camp” for year 6 writers is into its 25th year and our 2015 students are in camp and busy exercising their creative juices already. We hope to have a few ‘Eco Mystery’ stories ready to publish on this blog by Friday as our young authors try to marry technology (iPads and iBooks) with their creative writing skills.
Students are currently engaged in workshops with our Writer in Residence – Simon French. Simon has been to every one of the 25 Writers Camps and we are so grateful to him for supporting this camp and giving up his time to share his skills with the students. Danielle Chew from Barnier Public Schools is also leading the students on the path to creating an eco-mystery by Friday. We hope they are all up to the challenge!
Our day begun with some ‘get to know you games’ that allowed students from so many different schools to begin forming some friendships and bonds.
More updates to follow – so stay tuned!
Early this week we had a moving and special day. We journeyed with Aboriginal students and staff from Arthur Phillip HS, Blacktown Girls HS, St Clair HS and St Mary’s Senior to several rock art sites in the NW Sydney region.
We offer thanks to the Darug Community and Elder Aunty Edna Watson for giving their permission to enter and view these sites. Our guide for the day was Erin Wilkins – Darug woman and Aboriginal Educator with Brewongle EEC and Muru Mittigar.
I can think of no better way to celebrate NAIDOC week in schools than to share some of this incredible heritage of the Sydney region with local students. It was profound event for us and we hope the students too. The sites we visited in Canoelands and Maroota are examples of the rich thousand year old sites that are all around us here in the Sydney basin.
To me, a non-Aboriginal man – I was incredibly grateful to visit these sites and witness the power and a little of the way things were in this land for millenia past. Feelings of sadness and shame bubbled up for the destruction of culture and people that occurred in our tainted colonial past.
If you did not have the chance to watch ‘The Secret River’ on ABC TV recently – I would highly recommend this as a confronting and insightful historical fiction of early settlement and Darug Aboriginal cultures on the Hawkesbury River. It is based on a book by Kate Grenville which is a must read also.
I think these sites are as significant to the world as Stonehenge or the Pyramids, but it is a sad reflection on our country that they are mostly forgotten and lost to all but a few of the community. Maybe it is for the best – they are less prone to vandalism and tourism the way they are. They will gradually erode and fade away.
The Darug culture will not – thanks to custodians like Erin and the Darug community who are educating us all of these traditions. We hope students who took part in our program take pride in their culture and value themselves as custodians of culture into the future.
Listen to Uncle Wes Marne tell a story of the Rainbow Serpent at the Canoelands cave site.
And Aunty Edna Watson discuss the Devil’s Rock site at Maroota
Science and Technology are inherently linked. In the case of citizen science, technology has quite literally opened up a world of information. In particular, technology has bridged the divide between little Jimmy Smith in Year 5 and Professor Ignatius D. Pardalote, a global expert conducting research on the intricate feeding patterns of the Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua) in Dry Schlerophyll Woodland Communities in Eastern Australia. This link is beneficial for both parties:
In short, citizen science engages members of the public to take part in scientific research studies by assisting to collect data about wildlife or natural areas. Robert Simpson states that citizen science can be best understood from understanding where it fits and what kinds of activities in entails:
“We are at the beginning of a citizen science renaissance online. After hundreds of years, beyond the purview of bug-collectors and bird-watchers (all very important work, I hasten to add), we are finally able to tap into the cognitive surplus – the population’s free time – and attempt truly distributed research.”
For us teachers though, it’s not about tapping into our free time – WE HAVE NONE! – It’s about taking our students outside and watching their eyes widen through binoculars as they lie on their backs and observe, or watching them channel David Attenborough as they quietly attempt to identify a bird species before it flies off. But in doing so, each and every one of them is engaged in a real-life scientific enquiry. You’re facilitating your students’ participation in a specific research project to enhance the range and depth of data available to researchers. 
Citizen science projects such as Birds in Backyards and School of Ants meet numerous outcomes from the new Science K-10 Syllabus, including Working Scientifically, Working Technologically, and the Natural Environment (Living World). In addition, collation and analysis of the data meets Mathematics K-10 Outcomes such as Statistics and Probability (Data) and Measurement and Geometry (Location).
Almost the best part of all for citizen science in schools is that all the hard work’s done! The aim of citizen science is to make data collection completely user-friendly. Those clever Professors have provided you with everything you and your students need to take part in the research. Some of them even create lesson plans and supplementary activities for your students!
For us EEC teachers, the best part of all is seeing students become aware of the world they live in and seeing them apply that awareness to action. Not only does citizen science add to learning outcomes for students and research outcomes for scientists, it starts little Jimmy Smith and his classmates on a journey of discovery to make a difference to the environment around them. They’ve found out the “What?”, now let them ask “Why?”… Why are there far less small birds than big birds in our schoolground? Is this a good thing? Why are there lots of one species but not many other species? And most importantly, how will we make our schoolground a better habitat for native birds and other animals? 
It is on again! Follow this link to see this flyer online, watch the video and register.
https://www.smore.com/see0r-2015-youth-eco-summit-yes?ref=email
So you take a feathery local species, like a Tawny Frogmouth, you mix in a crime scene, some suspects, plenty of hands on investigating and SHAZAM, you have yourselves an outdoor, eco-mystery challenge that never fails to grip primary age students.
Our Eco Mystery day – ‘The Tawny Tragedy‘ is one of our most engaging programs. Students eyes widen when they arrive at Brewongle to discover a crime scene complete with police tape and the chalk outline of the victim.
After reading the police report and discovering the food, water and shelter needs of the Tawny Frogmouth, the investigations begin.
Our ponds will be scoured for water bugs and tadpoles – are there are any water quality issues that may have killed Tawny? The forest and house areas are tested for health and possible food contaminents.
Weeds, feral animal prints and a habitat assessment will round out the day of mystery solving. Students are left to ruminate on their evidence and decide on a cause of death. A forensic police report arrives hot off the fax. Recommendations are sought by Brewongle staff to prevent this occurring in the future.
Could you replicate something like this in your school if you can’t visit us or your nearest Environmental Education Centre? This program is a fantastic example of engaging students in the outdoors. Students are required to use higher order thinking, problem solving and creativity skills. Literacy and numeracy are embedded and students emerge with knowledge and understanding of how an ecosystem works. Of course it also has all the syllabus links needed to fit in to the Australian Curriculum. Thanks to Barnier Public School for solving the crime!
I feel like this is the time of year for a bit of connection to some real things in life! Nothing about Christmas consumerism, busy shops, parties, politics or school reports. Here follows a few cool things I have come across in a pictorial journal from my phone. All mostly extra-curricular….
The Hawkesbury Earthcare Centre’s spring fair was as lovely event filled with sustainability, good food, music and of course our kid friendly Blender Bike! It was hot hot hot and the smoothies we produced via pedal power were enjoyed by all.
Our recently rediscovered huge Port Jackson Fig excelled itself with fruit production this year and these little ripe morsels are quite tasty as far as bush tucker goes. Our local bird population feasted for weeks I think as there are none left now! These were a favoured bush food for the Darug people.
I managed a couple of early morning bike rides to Lower Portland before work – training for the Sydney to the Gong bike ride. This is a shot of our beautiful river in the morning mist.
The Great Koala Count saw me wandering over the Kurrajong escarpment looking for our furry little friends. The word must have been out in the koala community that I was coming – as I saw not a single one! About ten different people described koala encounters they had recently had around Kurrajong….. how come I missed out?
A recent weekend saw the launch of the Youth Food Movement in the Hawkesbury. A lovely wholesome event put on by UWS Food Sustainability Students. The YFM has grown from the vision of two amazing young women to have more than 13000 followers all interested in sustainable and healthy food production and consumption. The highlight for me was sitting next to Costa (from Gardening Australia) and having a good yack about all topics. Brilliant man (and a brilliant beard!).
A rejuvenating bushwalk on Sunday in the National Park behind my house gave me some hope amongst all the current environmental doom and gloom. Crystal clear rainforest streams, huge turpentine trees and an old, large yabby that I rescued from a trap (apologies to whoever had ideas of yabby stew for dinner.). The poor thing was all tangled up in string and had obviously been thrashing about trying to free itself. With the help of some broken glass I cut it free and sent it on its merry way.
Tree roots cascaded down a small waterfall and had become the path for water – an incredible living system of moss, algae, roots and who knows what else. Brilliant. A powerful owl (Ninox strenua) gave me a disdainful look as I stumbled upon it roosting on a vine with a small mammal in its claws. What an huge, awesome creature who was not bothered by my presence at all.
I walked back via a recent hazard reduction burn and discovered plenty of regrowth. The photo below is interesting as it shows bush recovering from two burns. The left of the track was burnt last year and to the right was burnt about two months ago.
The last feature to make me jump was a delicious diamond python snake sunning itself on the road outside my house. It took a bit of noise from me to get it off the road and out of the paths of cars. It did nonchalantly slither off eventually.
Brewongle Environmental Education Centre 