Murray Darling Association Inc

Project Profile

Issues

Due to the lack of specific primary school resources about the Murray River’s health, the Murray Darling Association is providing curriculum materials to support Murray-Darling Basin schools to understand and improve catchment health. Significantly, the Association’s initiatives have used the skills and knowledge of primary school students to make river health a key component of the NSW primary curriculum with the Association’s Foundation also supporting ideas identified by students to improve catchment health at the local level.

Project Detail

The Murray Darling Association has been nominated for a National Landcare Award for its work in developing ‘The Living River Living Murray’ curriculum framework for all Murray-Darling Basin schools.

Due to a lack of specific primary school resources about the Murray River’s health, the Murray Darling Association has developed curriculum materials to support Murray-Darling Basin schools to understand and improve catchment health. The Association’s initiatives have made river health a key component of the NSW primary curriculum with the Association’s Foundation also supporting ideas identified by students to improve catchment health at the local level.

The Association has membership of 100 councils across the Murray Darling Basin ensuring Local Government has a key role in managing the Basin’s natural resources.

The cooperative project has used the Association’s Local Government, schools, community and industry networks, to create education resources and activities that are being used in schools across the Murray-Darling Basin, along coastal NSW and even in some European countries. The partnership project reflects the optimism of students and their commitment to improving river and catchment health.

Key outcomes of the project include a NSW primary curriculum unit ‘The Living River Living Murray’; a student workbook and poster on Murray River issues and a DVD, made in cooperation with schools and natural resource management groups along the Murray River in three states. High school students also developed a ‘comic-style’ publication on river health.  Over 900 packages of materials have been distributed to school across the Murray-Darling Basin.

So impressed by the project, in October 2008 the Governor General, Quentin Bryce, requested a visit to Burrumbuttock to see first-hand the work by the Association and students on these projects.

A handbook that will give teachers guidance and confidence to engage their students with natural resource management issues is currently being developed support from industry and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.  The Association is also trialling a new action-focused approach to natural resource management workshops for about 50 primary schools along the Murray and Murrumbidgee catchments. Some workshops will also incorporate a leadership theme.

The Living River Living Murray curriculum is now the recommended unit of NSW primary curriculum for schools teaching natural resource management and the material is accessed weekly by the community, Local Government, Landcare, Catchment Management Authority’s and private schools in NSW and Victoria.  Additionally, the resources are being used by La Trobe University’s Diploma of Education course.

The Murray Darling Association project is one of 88 finalists in the National Landcare Awards to be announced in Canberra on 24 June 2010.  Commencing in 1991, the Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and groups that make a valuable contribution to the land and coast where they live and work.

Photography

Murry Darling Association