Finding your voice

Students at Warrnambool East Primary School have been working hard to educate their community about the local threatened species — and their work is paying off.

WORDS Georgia Lejeune

BRUSH-TAILED ROCK-WALLABY

Growing up in a town situated on Victoria’s iconic Great Ocean Road has given the students at Warrnambool East Primary School an acute awareness of the animal life that surrounds them. Having passionate science teachers like Kerry McCarthy, who encourages conservation-based education, doesn’t hurt either.

The school has a long history of participation in Zoos Victoria initiatives, beginning in 2014 with its involvement in the Marine Guardians program – where they collected plastic debris at a local beach – followed by Seal The

Loop action day in the same year. It was through this conservation work that the school established a relationship with

Zoos Victoria and became a Fighting

Extinction School.

“Since then, we’ve had this really great relationship. We’re doing lots of things and the kids here think it’s pretty special,” says Kerry.

The best buds

In late 2019 the school worked with the local Beach Patrol to launch the Better Buds campaign to educate the community about the harm plasticstemmed cotton buds can have on marine animals. “Plastics in cotton buds became a real issue on the local beach, where the outfall from the sewerage plant is. Local beach patrol volunteers have found more than 26,000 over the last three years,” says Kerry.

“One of our kids came up with a title, Better Buds, and at school we made posters, we made a video and we educated our local community here.” At the time, the students (now in grades six and seven) travelled to Melbourne Zoo to present what they had been working on.

The campaign was a success, with plastic-stemmed cotton buds added to the list of single-use plastics that will be banned in Victoria by February 2023, and is a 2021 finalist in the Sustainable Communities — Tidy Towns Awards for litter through the environmentalist group Keep Victoria Beautiful.

Planting for wildlife

More recently, the grade one and twos began a habitat restoration project at the beginning of 2021 to learn more about Zoos Victoria 27 Fighting Extinction animals and to plant a garden at the school with trees that would attract local native species. Each class chose a different native animal to

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TASMANIAN DEVIL

STUTTERING FROGS

Above: students from Warrnambool East Primary School (back L–R) Bella, Harry and Tellulah (front) Fred.

research — including the types of plants they use for food and habitats.

“We’ve been learning about the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby,” says Bella, aged seven. “They like to live in hilly places or where there’s bits of rocks for hiding. We’re planting native grasses in the garden for them.”

Chris Vella, Fighting Extinction Schools Coordinator, says, “One of the reasons that Warrnambool East Primary School is an exceptional Fighting Extinction School is because they have their program embedded in their regular curriculum. This means that every year they use their real-world Fighting Extinction Schools program to learn about animals and the environment. They then take that learning and turn it into student-led action.”

It’s this student-led action that’s empowered these seven and eightyear-olds to become eco-warriors in the community. “They’re much more articulate about what is right and what is wrong around plastics, litter and rubbish,” says Kerry.

Some have found ways to implement new sustainable habits at home. “My family has been trying to take shorter showers,” says Harry. “We used to take showers for up to 20 minutes but now we take only four minutes.”

Seven-year-old Fred adds, “We put our leftover food in containers, so we don’t waste food.”

To celebrate the new garden, and raise money for seating, the school hosted an endangered species dressup day and an official launch on 10 December — attended by members of the community and Zoos Victoria.

The students were excited to present what they had learnt about endangered animals. “We get to help all of the animals, if they’re endangered or not,” says Tellulah.

Harry adds, “I think it was good that we made the garden so then some of the endangered animals could come here and breed more of their type of animals.” ZN

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