News

To mark the start of the restoration planting following the Clear Range fire south of Canberra in February, recipients of a Landcare Australia Bushfire Recovery Grant 2020 Martin and Sally Hughes decided to allocate a tree for each grandchild.

When 7 year old Freya visited her grandparents at their Michelago farm she decided to make some tree guards into canvases for some of her lovely drawings. Freya tells us that her motivation for drawing on the tree guards was ‘I like drawing and I wanted to decorate them with things that my family likes doing so when they visit and see tree guards they will be happy and see them as belonging to them’’.

This example of personal creative expression helps to build resilience not only in young people but those around them- all whilst taking action to care for their environment in times of adversity. You can see how such artworks help to beautify the stark environment and will degrade naturally over time once the environment recovers more.

You could take Freya’s creative idea and create artworks for tree guards in your setting or to protect your garden plants. You could use paint, coloured pencils, charcoal or paints made from clay or ochre.

We are grateful Freya and her family for sharing their story with us and we are always excited to hear new ideas and activities. You are welcome to share your story via our website.

Sharing with us

We keenly welcome educators in our Junior Landcarer online community to help develop professional learning networks and encourage educators and landcare groups to come together and discuss Junior Landcare. We have added in some case studies to help inspire you. You can join us here.  Once you have registered on Landcarer and are signed in, you can join the group by clicking on this link. You will then need to click on the ‘Join’ button on the right of the cover photo to request to join the group.

Educator Hub coming soon.

We are finalising plans for our Educator Hub and would love to hear what you think. Contact me for a sneak peek, I would love to hear from you.

Yours in Junior Landcare,

Mary Bell
Junior Landcare Education Program Manager