Primary Excursions for Term 4

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.

Attention Year 11 Science and Geography teachers – Professional Learning

Year 11 Senior Science, Earth and Environmental Science and Geography teacher professional learning. Registered BOSTES course.

“Checking the Pulse of the Hawkesbury River”

27th November 2015 @ Brewongle EEC.

Study Topics: Water for Living / Local Environment/Biophysical Interactions

Spend a day working with academics and technical staff from Western Sydney University and Brewongle on the Hawkesbury River. This excursion will focus on River Ecology and Management and provide you with enhanced expertise to teach the relevant syllabus areas of your subject.

Download the flyer: Checking the Pulse of the Hawkesbury River TPL

Book with us on 02 45 791136 or email: brewongle-e.admin@det.nsw.edu.au

Checking the Pulse of the Hawkesbury River

We rely on water for all aspects of our lives. Often with hardly a thought we wash, drink, flush, swim, excrete and waste water. Do you know where your water comes from? How it got to the tap you just turned on? Where it goes after that loo flush, hot shower or car wash on the driveway? How does our water use influence the state of our rivers?

Students who visit us to study river ecology discover answers to these questions and many more as they “Check the Pulse of the Hawkesbury River”.

Yr 11 Science students from various schools have been donning their ecological stethoscopes here at Brewongle EEC for the last 6 years to test the health of the Hawkesbury River at Sackville. Thanks to the University of Western Sydney (UWS) Hawkesbury Campus, students have access to sophisticated river monitoring equipment and expertise.

Students partake in a university style field work experience and learn hands on, relevant science skills. The program is endorsed by the United Nations University via the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development located at UWS Hawkesbury campus.

This program is offered on six days throughout the year – it books up fast so please call us if you would like to involve your students. You can find more information on the program here.

It is a sensational classroom to have on a sunny day as students zoom down the Kent Reach in powerboats provided by the University to analyse some physical, chemical and biological aspects of river health.

Students who participate in this  program undertake a series of assessments throughout the day to provide a river health report by the end of proceedings. We hope the real learning is to value and love our waterways. Having a first hand understanding of river health can only help these young people grow up to make good decisions for our natural resources and informed choices about how to manage water.

Tests undertaken on the day include measurements of width, depth, temperature, acidity, salinity, oxygen levels and turbidity. These physical and chemical parameters provide a snapshot of river health and students discover how to interpret this data and provide a diagnoses of any river problems they find.

Most of the treated sewage effluent from Western Sydney ends up in the river, sometimes accounting for about 60% of the flow. Students examine the effects of this effluent by sampling algae. Changes in algal numbers and diversity are an excellent biological indicator of river health and can show marked changes in the high nutrient environments that sewage effluent can create. Thanks to Galston High School for being our photograph subjects!

A multiprobe used to test various parameters

Measuring river width with a range finder.

A fashion highlight of the day includes the donning of waders to experience the joys of collecting algae as well as completing a comprehensive erosion assessment on a section of riverbank.

Upon returning to the lab, students magnify their algal samples and identify species to obtain a biodiversity assessment. Students then evaluate and synthesis their data to provide recommendations on how we can remediate and improve our waterways.

This valuable program would not be possible without the ongoing support of UWS and the UWS Office of Sustainability and we thank them for their ongoing commitment to school education and enrichment programs.

 

Feedback from Brett Clements – Cherrybrook Technology High School

                 Saw your post today about this excursion. This is one of my fav excursions for Yr 11.

Warrawi Yana Nura – Aboriginal Student Cultural Leadership

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.

Erin Wilkins and students discovering kangaroo and shield engraving.

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

I rescued a yabby and other tales…

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….

Hawkesbury Earthcare Fair

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.

The Hawkesbury River

 

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.

Koala Scratchings?

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?

Me ‘n Costa

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.

A living waterfall

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.

Powerful Owl

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.

Caring for our Brewongle country

Once again we are indebted to the lovely students and staff from Mt Druitt Tutorial School for their bush regeneration efforts last Friday. Perfect cool weather allowed us to continue lantana removal in our patch of critically endangered Shale Sandstone Transition Forest. Angus, Kyla and Emma from Blue Tongue Ecosystems came along to lend a hand and provide tools and expertise.

We came across some amazing incidental wildlife sightings including an old ringtail possum drey, two spotted pardalotes building their underground nest, a brush-tailed possum and our cute little shrike thrushes nesting again. The awareness and appreciation of nature by the students gave me hope that the next generation will look after our natural resources. We hope to see the students back here next term when we begin to replant some of the species that are missing from our patch of bush. Thanks to the Windsor to Weir funding which has now allowed us to remove lantana and plant native species along the Hawkesbury River below Brewongle and also begin work up the banks on Brewongle land.

Enjoy the photos!

A ringtail possum and homemade drey

Spotted pardalote nest building

Female spotted pardalote

Learning how to use tools

Removing lantana

Shrike thrush nest

Where does the toilet water go? – Sydney Water Excursions

 

Ever wondered what happens after you flush? If you live in an urban area then your waste will disappear down the pipes and you will probably not give it any further thought. Most likely your waste will travel to a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), then eventually it will end up back in our waterways. For most of the 15 or so STP’s in Western Sydney, the water will return from whence it came – back in the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment as tertiary treated sewage.

We recently had a fantastic day with Cherrybrook Technology High  School and their Year 11 Geography Class at the Rouse Hill Recycled STP. These lucky students have a fantastic teacher who has organised a series of excursions looking at Biophysical Interactions pertaining to water. They came to us for a River Ecology day and tested the health of the Hawkesbury river a few months ago, then we went further upstream to look at the source of all the nutrients we found in the river – the STP at Rouse Hill. Rouse Hill is quite unique in that it recycles a large percentage of water back into the township via the purple pipes to water gardens and flush toilets.

This is a MUST DO excursion for all students and it certainly improved my knowledge and water waste awareness. Download the Sydney Water Excursion Program flyer or contact us to arrange one for you. Students began by interacting with a working catchment model to see how farming and urban water practices can alter runoff into our waterways.

 

They then discovered what can and can’t go down the toilet! Toilet paper and excrement is fine – just about everything else is not. The flushable toilet wipes turned out to be not so flushable after all.

 

Someone at the STP has the gruesome job of de-clogging the filters of this waste – so think of them when next you flush! No plastics, tissues or other stuff down the toilet!

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There are alternatives to mass waste treatment of course….

If you live without connected sewage like here at Brewongle and at my home, then waste disposal is a big issue.

We have a fantastic worm farm waste system at my house and a similar system operates here at work. ALL waste (yes including the brown stuff!) goes into a large worm farm composting system. The worms have a great time devouring this as well as our food compost. The product is nutrient rich water that has been cleaned by worms. We then pump this under our gardens for healthy plants! Are more of these the answer to our waste problems in urban areas?

Fixing up the Forest with Mt Druitt Tutorial School

There is something inherently satisfying about pulling out weeds – don’t you agree? Managing ecosystems is a tricky complex business, but pulling out and poisoning noxious problem plants like lantana is a real, hands on result orientated activity. You can see and measure progress and I swear I could hear the native plants sighing as we removed choking thickets of smelly, prickly lantana. Lantana is a garden plant (from South America originally) that causes major issues in our native bush. It can choke the shrub layer and even grow up into the canopy. It excludes native plants and changes local ecosystems – often to the detriment of the trees – see this information on Bell Miner Associated Dieback.

Angus Reynolds from Blue Tongue Ecosystems providing instruction.

We spent the day on Wednesday with Blue Tongue Ecosystems who are an excellent local bush regeneration company as well as some fantastic students and staff from Mt Druitt Tutorial School. The aim of the day was to remove as many weeds as we could from our surrounding bushlands and gardens. What an incredible job we all did! The students and staff took to the work with gusto, discovering how to use various tools and chemicals as well as avoiding too many lantana scratches. Thanks so much to Mt Druitt Tutorial School and we look forward to seeing you again in the future! A huge thanks to the staff of Blue Tongue who were professional, efficient and helped our property immensly.

Before…

After!

 

We have had an ongoing issue with weeds here at Brewongle. Our critically endangered Shale Sandstone Transition Forest is doing its best despite a long history of human disturbance. We have photos showing most of our forest was felled in the early 1900’s and has since regenerated to some degree. We seem to be missing a few species and have an ongoing problem with weed invasion. Many of our trees are not old enough to form tree hollows (which can take up to 100yrs to form) and hence we are missing some vital animal habitat also. To combat this in the short term we have installed many different bird and possum nest boxes to supplement the few tree hollows available.

Brewongle felled forest circa early 1900’s

A day on a warm river….

Our brilliant sunshiney classroom for the day yesterday was the Hawkesbury River at Sackville North. Senior Geography students from Cherrybrook Technology High School enjoyed the winter sun and a pleasant 19 degrees as they assessed the health of our beautiful river.

This program called River Ecology (Water for Living) has been running for the last 5 years with the help of the University of Western Sydney. They provide us with boats, monitoring equipment and expertise to enhance student outcomes. Data has been kept for all this time and it will be interesting to analyse how things have changed.

We compared some data collected yesterday to the data that this same school collected in 2011 and one interesting fact stood out. At the same time of year in 2011 the water was a whopping 2 degrees cooler. Given that we have had the warmest May on record and June is shaping up the same this result is not surprising. We are now keen to analyse all the data to see if there is a warming trend occurring.

Water temperature impacts many things in the ecology of a river. As you can probably guess it promotes algal growth and the blooms of algae were noticeable on the river yesterday – unusual for this time of year. Too much algae can increase turbidity (muddiness) and reduce light penetration to aquatic plants. Warm water also holds less oxygen than cold water so extended periods of heat can influence the whole river food chain.

The good news is we gave the river a pretty good scorecard in most areas yesterday after a rigorous physical. Other abiotic measures were as expected and we discovered some very pollution sensitive water  bugs including mayfly nymphs and freshwater shrimp – this indicates clean water as these would not be present in highly polluted water. We identified a variety of algal species – mostly of the non-toxic or clean water kind and our expert for the day Dr Ian Wright confirmed that he had observed the health of the river improving over the last few decades.

We discussed that river health is very much dictated by the qualtiy of our sewerage treatment plants (STP’s) discharge. Over half the river flow in the Hawkesbury Nepean system can come from STP discharge (over 20 plants!) – so as our technology to clean wastewater and remove nutrients improves so should our river health. As Western Sydney seems to be in the midst of a housing development boom this will place increasing pressures on our rivers and streams. More houses = more toilets = more waste!

So on that note I will leave you thinking on where our wastewater ends up…. in the river!

 

Bloody battles and new life – the story of the Waratah

Chris Tobin is a local Darug Aboriginal man, artist and educator who we sometimes manage to lure out to Brewongle. We love hearing his stories and feel privileged to learn of his cultural knowledge. Chris recently created some beautiful artwork on one of our grey gums during the Engaging Visions artists workshop. Enjoy this short video as he relates the story of the waratah via his artwork with bellbirds in the background and the majestic Hawkesbury River as a backdrop. Notice the contributions of the grey gum via some macabre leaking sap and look closely for the goanna claw marks on the tree.