On Tuesday in Week 2 the ‘Planet Protectors’ – YELP Youth Environmental Leaders, participated in a full day Student Forum on the environment facilitated by Green Adelaide.

Meeting in the main pavilion at Belair National Park we joined with eight other school groups from the hills and local area to engage in activities focused on the improvement of sustainability practices in our schools and understanding and caring for our natural environment.
Our activities included –
  1. Bird Real Estate Pitch
The Planet Protectors were assigned an area of natural habitat and challenged to identify the positive qualities this area provided to support life for a range of animals, including birds, insects and reptiles. We now understand that animals need five key things to survive – a healthy habitat, food, water, safe areas to raise and nurture their young and protection of predators. We then shared our ideas by pitching like real estate agents to talk up the positive environmental aspects we identified.
  1. Friends of Belair National Park
This amazing park of 832 hectares was established in 1891 as only the second National Park in the whole of Australia. The Mount Lofty Ranges continue to be recognised as nationally significant due to the unique and healthy ecosystem supporting biodiversity and many rare species. This amazing team of volunteers provide ‘bush care’ to strategically manage the habitat and the removal of invasive plant species threatening our sensitive native plants.
  1. Sensory Activity
After lunch we paired up with students from other schools and were guided blindfolded around the park. This was so much fun and we learnt to focus on all our senses including hearing, touch, smell and taste to engage in a deeper experience of the natural environment.
  1. Nature Journaling
This was our final session of the day – we ventured outside to find a space to sit quietly by ourselves. By closing our eyes and listening carefully our attention was intently focused on the environment around us – we recorded what we heard, how it made us feel and created a small drawing of what we thought it was. We are looking forward to exploring further the nature journaling ideas shared with us today.
Thank you to Jeremy and Green Adelaide for a highly engaging student forum and for sharing your key message – find your favourite natural environment, go there often and take care of it …  what will you change about the way you live today?
Evannah H, Frank G, Owen T and Abbe S