There were 18 recipients of funding in Round 3.
WetlandCare Australia, Mid-north Coast, NSW
Estuarine Workshops
WetlandCare Australia’s project involves a series of interactive community workshops focused on healthy estuarine wetlands, their importance to biodiversity, fish stocks and sustainable coastal communities.
The project will include a series of two workshops, involving a variety of activities including, a mangrove discovery walk and shorebird spotting and identification. To celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity these workshops will give regional communities the opportunity to explore, discover and learn more about the uniqueness, variability and sensitivity of estuarine wetlands.
Estuarine wetlands (Mangrove forests, saltmarsh, mudflats and waterways) offer many benefits – providing essential nursery habitat; supporting and protecting aquatic diversity; allowing recreational fishing and coastal activities, they are hotspots for biodiversity.
The proposed workshops will target regional coastal communities (Red Rock to Urunga, NSW) but will particularly focus on community groups including senior citizens and recreational fishers. In targeting these community groups the project will aim to reach an audience that not only heavily utilise the coastal environment but consider it an important part of their social identity. These groups also have a large role to play in the sustainable use and on-going protection of estuarine wetlands.
Bug Blitz, Narmbool, Victoria
A cubic metre
In February 2010, National Geographic magazine’s feature article was entitled “A Cubic Foot”. The author and Bug Blitz Patron, Dr EO Wilson, wrote this absorbing article about the extravagant biodiversity that can be found by “thrusting the shovel into the soil”.
The Bug Blitz Trust has adapted this scientific research concept and plans to implement it with Victorian school students for the first time at Narmbool, near Ballarat, Victoria, in late Spring 2010. Subsequent roll-out of the event will occur at 5 or more Victorian locations.
Supported by Museum scientists, students will:-
- Dig up a cubic metre of soil at one or more sites
- Process it methodically through winkler traps to dry out the soil and collect the invertebrates that fall out of a grid at its base
- Collect, describe, count and identify these live specimens
- Record the biodiversity count for the site
- Film the process and upload to the Bug Blitz website where it can be viewed and replicated by other students and school communities
At the conclusion of the project, students will have literally “unearthed” some of the best-kept secrets of our planet – as Dr EO Wilson describes “the ground dwellers (which are) the heart of life on Earth”.
Australian Science Festival Canberra, ACT
Photographic Scavenger Hunt
The Year of Biodiversity Australian Science Festival photographic scavenger hunt is a competition in the lead up to and during the Australian Science Festival. There will be 16 biodiversity and science festival themed places/items to photograph. Entrants will be asked to photograph the item or something that embodies the ‘theme’ of the item.
The event is themed around biodiversity and sustainability but also how these disciplines blend and merge with other science disciplines. It also highlights where people can go to find out more information about biodiversity and potential career paths that can evolve from them. It is also an artistic avenue through which people can express their thoughts on biodiversity.
Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, Winton, QLD
Dinosaurs to Dunnarts program
The proposed Dinosaurs to Dunnarts program will look to enhance the visitor experience by encouraging participants to take photos of the flora and fauna they encounter along a 2 km walking track. Interpretive material used along the track and museum staff will assist visitors in identifying the flora and fauna discovered along their walk. At the completion of the tour participants will then be assisted to download their favourite images to an online image library.
This imagery and the list of flora and fauna gained through the program will assist in creating a database of biodiversity for our natural flat-top plateau: 7 km long and rising 75 metres above the surrounding plains, the AAOD Jump-Up.
University of New England, Armidale, NSW
Child’s Play: discovering New England woodland biodiversity through art, music and science.
We will cross and connect the disciplines of art, music with biodiversity science of botany and zoology to engage, educate and excite school children and the broader regional community on biodiversity through activities, performances and exhibitions on the theme of biodiversity of the nationally important New England Grassy Woodlands. New England Grassy Woodlands are biodiverse and still yielding spectacular species new to science, such at the as yet undescribed New England Paperdaisy.
Primary and Secondary schools of region will be approached to join in on the celebration of IYB. Students will be encouraged to combine an art and content with the approach being decided by the students and their teachers.
We will invite prominent local artists to prepare works for exhibition. One or more art pieces that celebrate endemic plants will be commissioned for production of prints. Theatre performers will be engaged to perform at the opening events of the exhibition, using material from a repertoire developed from previous performances on the theme.
WWF, Chittering, WA
Bioblitz
‘Bioblitz’ is an intensive, interactive and fun 24-hour snapshot of the biodiversity of a natural area. Volunteer scientists lead community members in surveys for all major elements of biodiversity – flora, mammals, reptiles, birds, insects and so on. While the surveys glean useful information for the management of the area and the species it supports, they also engage and educate the community in the biodiversity of the area and methods used to document it.
A Bioblitz event will be timely in Chittering. A considerable number of people are moving to this area, as a ‘tree change’, taking up rural residential or bushland properties. Raising community awareness of the biodiversity of the area will result in impacts beyond the 24-hour period of the Bioblitz as people return home to manage their own bushland areas.
Merri Creek Management Committee, Melbourne, Victoria
Indigenous Biodiversity
A focus on linking the indigenous biodiversity of the Merri Creek Catchment with Indigenous Cultural Heritage opportunities especially at Melbourne Museum.
MCMC will engage with groups including CaLD and Indigenous groups (e.g. Wurundjeri Tribe Land & Compensation Council) and potentially work with Wurundjeri Council’s Arts and Crafts Group and other Victorian Aboriginal artists to produce artwork.
Bronwyn Razem has agreed to lead traditional weaving workshops using grasses of the Merri catchment at Melbourne Museum and in the Merri catchment.
Indigenous biodiversity awareness workshops in the Milari Gardens will involve between 4 and 6 workshops involving up to 3 sessions with groups and public visitors to Melbourne Museum and/or natural areas of the Merri Creek catchment including guided walks of the Museum’s Indigenous garden led by an Indigenous Guide.
James Cook Museum, Cooktown, QLD
Workshops and interpretive walks in the Museum Gardens
The aim is to provide an insight to the connections between land and people, highlighting the local Aboriginal people’s interaction with the landscape in our region and how their stewardship has affected the environment, their continuing connection with country and what can be learned by all people for the appropriate care and management of our environment.
The James Cook Museum is proud of its connection with local Aboriginal people and the material it displays relating to their experiences since European settlement of this region. We have a strong ongoing relationship with the local Guugu Yimthiirr people and feel these activities could share and highlight our relationships with the natural world with humans as part of the landscape, our obligations & responsibilities to the environment and the future of human dependence and interaction with the land.
The workshops would include local Aboriginal people sharing knowledge about Aboriginal uses and cultivation of plants, explaining ways to identify different plant species and understanding the roles that plants and people have in the environment.
Conservation Council of WA
Bellwethers of Climate Change
The White-striped Bat (Tadarida australis) is one of the largest insectivorous (microbats) in Australia. It is a fast flyer and tracks the open space above the tree canopy. Its speed gives it a wide foraging range and as a result it is one of the few bats routinely encountered over urban areas. Unlike most other microbats, the White-striped Bat cannot hibernate and so may be encountered foraging at relatively low temperatures. It also uses its fast energetic flight to migrate northwards across the arid zone during the winter months. Unlike other microbats part of the White-striped Bats echolocation call is audible to most people once they’ve been tuned in.
The White-striped Bat is being groomed as a climate change indicator species for both the ClimateWatch Program and the Conservation Council of Western Australia’s Citizen Science Program. The White-striped Bat is easy to detect (by listening for it) and its behaviour, distribution, migratory timing and population size are all potential indicators of climate change. Can the White-striped Bat adapt and if so how and where?
The ‘bat-listening’ project will be launched along with the 24 other Western Australian Climatewatch indicators at the opening of Conservation Week on 23 October. The launch will be preceded by a seminar ‘ Bellwethers of Climate Change’ that will demonstrate the different responses of WA plants and animals to current climate change, including seabirds, bats and native plants. If volunteer bat listeners could do at least one observation period in that period, we can get a spring snap-shot of where the bats are distributed.
Coogee Public P&C, Coogee, NSW
Outdoor Biodiversity Classroom
The school student community and aftercare student services in the grounds of Coogee Public School in Sydney will establish a natural environment within the limited school grounds to enable the students and their families to explore the role of biodiversity in the natural environment.
The school campus has very limited amounts of green space and 49% of Coogee public students live in units with little or no access to gardens. This project will provide a unique experience for many children who otherwise would not have the opportunity of interacting in a natural area.
An outdoor classroom will be established with seating and sandstone blocks erected among a native garden in the school playground. It will include a birdbath, frog pond, a beehive of native stingless bees, a native walk, and an adjacent native rockery on public land. The design will be produced in liaison with Randwick City Council’s Biodiversity Officer and link with the Council’s ‘native haven’ project.
Twice-annual open days involving the local public on weekends will be held that involve educational materials and artifacts from the Australian Museum’s ‘museum-in-a-box’ collection of ‘frogs’, ‘mini-beasts’, ‘freshwater life’ and more.
Western Australian Museum, Perth (biodiversity backpack)
Western Australian Museum, WA
Biodiversity Backpacks – Exploring Urban Biodiversity in a Big City
‘Biodiversity Backpack’ kits will be used to engage school groups and families with young children with species diversity in naturally-existing and created urban wetlands. These kits could be borrowed by these audiences from the Museum’s Discovery Centre and would engage them in approximately 1–2 hours of self-guided activities at the new urban wetlands and within relevant Museum galleries.
- The ‘Biodiversity Backpacks’ could include a range of resources, and would cross a variety of disciplines, including
- fact cards / ‘spotto’ activities relating to the Cultural Centre’s urban wetlands (information about how it was created, plant and animal species, food chains etc)
- activity cards and related resources for exploring the urban wetlands space including magnifying glasses, binoculars, petri dishes, funnels
- water testing kits and sheets for recording information about water quality (this information will be gathered via the Museum’s Discovery Centre)
- information about common threats to native flora and fauna
- information about creating habitats to benefit local species in an urban environment
- information about ‘wild places’ that can be visited by school groups and families (eg a map of the Perth region, including wetlands or bushland)
- drawing / art equipment
- pledge cards – for young visitors to make a promise to help the environment (to be displayed in the Discovery Centre)
- books about wetlands and wetlands species (fiction and non-fiction)
- activity trail related to wetland and threatened species within the Museum.
Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, Eden, NSW
Cetacean Diversity Programme
The Sapphire Coast Cetacean Diversity program will involve professional mentors with arts and science specialties to assist gifted and talented secondary students in creating a three dimensional cetacean diversity display for the SCMDC and its’ visitors.
The program will include the construction of six scale models of cetaceans found along the Sapphire Coast (humpback whale, southern right whale, killer whale, Blue whale, sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin).
Benefits will include:
- the development of professional displays to inform the public about the diversity and ecological requirements of cetaceans (whales and dolphins)
- the promotion of the importance of scientific cetacean research
- the opportunity for gifted and talented students to receive professional mentoring in the fields of science and art
Myall Park Botanic Garden, Darling Downs, QLD
Invertebrate Biodiversity Flagship Project
Myall Park Botanic Garden features a collection of plants from arid, semi arid and dry tropical zones of Australia. However it is most valued for its areas of natural bushland that retains the genetic biodiversity of locally occurring communities and species of the western Darling Downs of Queensland.
The project aims to:
- restore threatened invertebrate species by creating a refuge to ensure species survival and safeguard these for future generations,
- encourage active community and visitor participation through project engagement, research and contribution, and
- enhance opportunities to extend knowledge of biodiversity preservation throughout the region
It will encourage staff, school children, community members and visitors to explore the role of biodiversity in creating a refuge for flagship invertebrate species such as the Western Imperial Blue and the Bulloak Jewel (butterflies) and their symbiotic relationship with ants.
Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW
Murray Darling Biodiversity Photographic Exhibition
A series of large-format photographs from a selection of photographers: including David Watson, Dirk Spennemann, Damien Michael and Peter Merritt. Each will choose a selection of their best biodiversity related work. Behind each image will be the stories behind the shots on topics such as: wildlife, plant life, how-to photo tips, and inspirational travel stories. The exhibition will be linked to other biodiversity events and on-line activities happening as part of the International Year of Biodiversity.
The display will tour along the Murray and Murrumbidgee (i.e the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Lower Murray CMA areas) and be on display in regional museums, council chambers and shopping centres where possible.
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens, Darwin, NT
Living Gondwana: Cycads in the NT
The Northern Territory has some 11 species of native cycads (genus Cycas and Macrozamia), with most species in the northern monsoonal tropics. They are a prominent feature of the country side around Darwin, with one species listed as vulnerable. These plants are a living remnant of the age of dinosaurs and would have been a feature of the vegetation of Gondwanaland.
The Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is running an exhibition Wildlife of Gondwana beginning early December 2010 and running into 2011 while the nearby George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens (GBDBG) has comprehensive living exhibitions of NT cycad species in naturalistic habitat displays.
Cycads in the NT would include information on both conservation and Aboriginal traditional uses, the latter potentially including a traditional painting. The Cycad walk & accompanying map & brochure at GBDBG will be a semi permanent display targeted to a general audience with an interest in plants, including the many tourists and locals who visit the GBDBG.
Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, VIC
Microscope Drawing Workshops
The grant will be used to employ three members of the Scale Free Network art-science collaborative, Briony Barr (artist), Dr Gregory Crocetti (microbiologist), Jacqueline Smith (art teacher), to design and implement two hour workshops suitable for students in the middle years (grade 5 to year 8 ) and one professional development session for teachers.
The Microscope Drawing Workshops at the Art Gallery of Ballarat will combine lessons in science, art, history and mathematics. The aim is to facilitate different ways to learn and be inspired by the microscopic world. The Microscope Drawing Workshop is designed to provide a different perspective of the world around us. We know what everyday objects look like but what do they really look like? Which micro-beasts live inside a single droplet of water? What are scientists looking at when measuring in nanometres, picometres or zeptometres?!
Barbara Hardy Centre, UniSA, Adelaide, SA
Operation Spider
Operation Spider, a state-wide research and education project focusing on invertebrates and spiders. This project is being run by the Barbara Hardy Centre at the University of South Australia in collaboration with ABC Local Radio (891 ABC Adelaide and regional stations) and the South Australian Museum. Findings of the project will be published for the scientific and wider communities.
The project will engage the public with biodiversity by providing information and asking them to gather local data. This research and education project is focused on invertebrates and, in particular, spiders.
The aims of Operation Spider are to:
- engage the public of South Australia with local wildlife
- increase awareness of the ecological roles and economic importance of invertebrates and, in particular, spiders
- collect data on spider distributions in South Australia
- collect data on people’s attitudes towards spiders
- feed new knowledge to both scientific and wider communities
Ecological Society of Australia, Canberra, ACT
Biodiversity and You
An opportunity to engage with some of the best international and local ecologists in a public panel discussion / debate. The aim is to promote the importance of biodiversity to the public; to link people’s health, wellbeing and lifestyle to the services and values that biodiversity provides.
The Ecological Society Conference is attracting the world’s leading ecologists to Canberra, and they will be available to present at this event. The conference has no other public science communication opportunities.
