Year 4 Excursion to the Georges River Environmental Education Centre

On a sunny Monday, the Year 4 students who didn’t go to camp had the opportunity to attend an excursion to the Georges River Environmental Education Centre. When we first arrived, one of the instructors named Grant taught us about how far St Johns Park Public School was from the Georges River and how long the river runs through NSW.

Firstly, we all got split up into three groups and Karina, another instructor, took us on a walk to spot some Australian common birds around Homestead Park. Our task was to find and tally as many pictured birds as possible that were listed in our booklets. Many students got the opportunity to see the different species of birds such as galahs, ibises, rainbow lorikeets, noisy miners, cockatoos, masked lapwing (plovers), wood ducks, magpies, and ravens. We also had to be quiet so we could hear the different types of bird calls. Sadly, we didn’t get to see or hear the kookaburras.

After lunch, Laura, an enthusiastic instructor, took us outside to learn about the roles that different insects play in our environment. We learnt about the life cycle of flowers turning into fruits with the help of pollinators. Laura handed out kaleidoscopes to experience what it would be like to have the eyes of a fly. We could see so many duplicates of others when we looked through them. Soon after, we went into the bushes to find insects using a clear container with a lid, paintbrush, and a magnifying glass. Laura demonstrated using a white cloth placed under a branch, shook the leaves to see if any insects fell on it. We discovered grasshoppers, spiders, cockroaches, leafhoppers, beetles, leaf insects and ants. We also found a cicada shell.

Then, we went into the garden with Grant, and he told us Dreamtime stories about ‘The Goanna and the Gumtree’ as well as ‘The Old Man Banksia’. We used red ochre rocks and rubbed it into stone tiles with water to create clay-like paint, and Grant encouraged us to paint Aboriginal symbols on ourselves. It was fun. We got to see new things like frogs, tadpoles, water insects, and dragonflies. We got a peek of the possum’s ear in its wooden house up in a tree.

Lastly, inside the classroom, Karina showed us a live spiny stick bug. Some of us were a little scared of the bug! Then she showed us a bunch of taxidermies of animals that have been preserved such as a tawny frogmouth, owls, foxes, dingoes, bats, mice, and a cockatoo. We also got to see a live blue tongue lizard, a blue yabby, a green tree frog, snakes, crickets, and fish.

Overall, it was a joyful experience in the outdoors near the Chipping Norton Lake.