A review of the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens children’s activity trail and booklet

Michelle Pacey, mother, teacher and Education Officer at Bundaberg Regional Galleries

Both books are a worthwhile read for anyone interested in native plants and are published by CSIRO Publishing (2020) with a RRP of $49.99. Plants of Subtropical Eastern Australia by Andrew Benwell: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7974/ Australian Rainforest Seeds by Mark Dunphy, Steve McAlpin, Paul Nelson and Michelle Chapman: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7884/

I have two daughters and we absolutely loved our morning exploring the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens with the activity trail booklet. The map in the booklet is easy to read and helped us find the plants or features that were linked with activities in the book. The trail is well planned and well-paced, with the 20 activities located around the main lagoon in the gardens. The short travel distances between featured activities were a blessing for the less patient members of our group! Each activity in the booklet is suitable for all age groups and provided fantastic opportunities to have a chat with the kids about what they were seeing. I also loved the mix of whole-body activities that asked the kids to listen, look and move, as well as the sneaky, hidden literacy and numeracy activities that incorporated measurement, mapping and codebreaking. Overall, this was an excellent activity for my group – I’d give it a 5-star rating (out of 5)!

The kids’ activity trail booklet.