Youth Environmental Leadership (YELP) Team Update
In week 6 the YELP Team attended the final event for 2024, held at Scotch College Junior School and Mitcham Reserve, run by Green Adelaide. We joined together with student leaders from 8 other YELP schools from our region. This event involved environmental and sustainability learning and leadership activities and collaboration with a wide range of peers.
We began the day with each school sharing a reflection on their YELP Projects undertaken this year, which was really interesting. Our presentation showcased our Nest Box Survey with cameras borrowed from Green Adelaide, and establishing our new Native Butterfly Garden.
After the presentations, we were given a tour of Scotch College Junior School, to learn about their environmental activities, and we even got to pat one of the Bearded Dragons in their Science room. We then went to Mitcham Reserve and played a game called "The Web of Life", where we were all given a role in an ecosystem - herbivores had to gather food and water from buckets around the park, carnivores were trying to catch (tag) them for food, and the teachers were top level predators with a key attack advantage - water pistols!
After a celebratory pizza lunch, Liesl (an Educator from "Walking Together with Kaurna") talked to us about the history of Mitcham Reserve and introduced us to a range of indigenous games, and Drew (a Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri man) taught us about different traditional Cultural practices and showed us a range of tools that he had made, as well as a range of skins.
Despite the heat, it was a really interesting to learn about local Country and Cultural practices, and play some traditional indigenous games. It was also exciting to see all of the different things that the primary schools in our YELP cluster achieved this year and share our achievements.
Well done to Chloe, Ellie, Django, Fox, Oliver, Lachlan, Mariyam, Matilda, Katharine, Sophie, Ashley and Esme for a great first year of the Youth Environmental Leadership Program (YELP) at Mitcham Primary School!
Miriam Doull, Science Teacher
