Growing a Home at Medina

Turning a waste land to bush land is no easy task!  At Medina they have rolled up their sleeves and cleaned up the area.  Kids have also been involved in creating a big picture 'vision'. Yesterday when I visited the school we talked about the next stage being to learn a lot about the area, and to start small with action.  We looked at the Doing More with Less blog and at Harvey Primary School's Animoto.  Thanks Harvey!  I also showed the students a book that I bought from the Bundiyarra Aboriginal Community in Geraldton last week.  It's a Wajarri Dictionary - the language of the Murchison region of Western Australia.  We wondered  if there is a Noongar dictionary as well.  A good question to ask Mrs Little.

Kids decided that they should learn more about the plants and animals of the area.  I told them about the Greening Australia website, Grow Us a Home and the students began to investigate.

We then wrote a list of things to do next, as part of learning about the area.  Here's what we came up with.

1. Clean up the area.
2. Organise for rubbish to be removed.
3. Find out information about Kwinana.
4. Take photos of the plants.
5. Do soil testing and write up a description of the soil. (Can use the activities from the thumb drive)
6. Speak with Mrs Little about the Aboriginal history of Kwinana and connection to country.
7. Research the type of plants and animals in the area.
8. Check out the activities in the biodiversity section of the thumb drive that Ingrid gave us.
9. Listen to / record the sounds of birds in the area.
10. Make an Animoto describing what you can see / hear / feel.
11. Investigate Noongar words for the plants and animals.
12. Research bush tucker and medicine for Noongar country.

Medina are keen to get on to the next stage and are planning to send me a progress report by Week 7.  Go Medina!