Funds: Annual sponsorship
Source: Various
The award-winning Frog Dreaming gathering brings people with place together through storytelling. Frog Dreaming began as an annual two-day event in 2008. Since 2016, it has been held at the base of Mt Duval, Armidale NSW, and focusses on bringing years 5 and 6 primary school students together with secondary students in a forum supported by local community members from Landcare, University of New England, government agencies and environmental education specialists.
Since 2008, Frog Dreaming has succeeded in delivering an engaging and interactive learning program that connects youth with each other and in turn connects them with their local environment. Starting pre-event, students identify a local natural resource asset or issue and develop their idea into a creative story to be played out on Day 1 of Frog Dreaming. This experience then forms a baseline in which the students have the opportunity to build on their knowledge, skills and confidence to turn ideas into on-ground works within their respective communities.
We use tribal groups (mix of participants) as a vehicle to deliver the conference program to the students – it is here they have the opportunity to explore tribal totems with our ‘elders’ and high school student mentors and again using the power of storytelling and the ‘kids teaching kids’ methodology learn all about the importance of interconnectedness, local biodiversity and sustainable land management.
A bushwalk up Mt Duval followed by a series of creative NRM based activities on Day 2 further built the students skills/knowledge in areas such as soil and water health, bush regeneration, Aboriginal traditional heritage, and land management. A mass native revegetation effort is a highlight of the program with two stand outs being the 2012 Frog Forest (a frog shaped planting the size of a paddock) and last year, the Koala forest.
Beyond Frog Dreaming we continue to provide support and build relationships within the school communities – our social media hub is one avenue where we further engage the school networks in our Landcare community projects.
Contact Sara Schmude for further information.
