Students wrestle with waste for Science Week at Hive Tasmania

The Landcare Tasmania Education Team was invited to deliver their Waste and Wildlife Program to Northern Tasmanian students as part of Science Week at Hive Tasmania.

Where better to talk about how to protect Little Penguins from waste than in Ulverstone?

Over three days, Year 3 to 6 students from Northwest Christian School, Penguin Primary and Andrews Creek Primary came up with solutions to the impacts of our waste on platypus, microbats, and wallabies as well as Little Penguins. 

The Waste and Wildlife Program is designed to both inform how waste impacts our local wildlife as well as give students a voice in coming up with big and small ideas and actions to protect the places and animals they care about.

Most of the students knew that plastic was bad and had an understanding of how rubbish gets into the environment. However, there were a few surprises common across all five workshops:

1. Bread is deadly to our macropods (wallabies, kangaroos and padimelons), and

2. Tasmania has microbats, they are cute, and they get caught in fake cobwebs and garden netting and stuck on tape and sticky traps.

3. Hair ties and rubber bands can harm platypus.

Student-led actions and ideas

Northwest Christian School - “Bin it, don’t toss it.”

Year 3 to 6 students from Northwest Christian School recognised the need to not litter and to pick up rubbish. Highly voted on actions suggested by students included telling more people to throw their trash in the bin and a weekly school clean-up day. Other well liked action ideas were making rope out of wood and more money for recycling.

Annabelle committed to “do my part by cleaning up after myself and others and encourage others to, as well.”

Groups discussed that loving and caring for wildlife might mean not feeding them. 

Caden learnt that “kangaroos and wallabies change the way they chew when they eat bread” and is going to “put leftover lunch and scraps in the bin.”

Dakoda learnt that “you need to make the good things happen” and pledges to “get more people to help.”

Penguin Primary School - “Keep the sea rubbish free”

Penguin Primary Year 5 students’ number one action was to not use fake spider webs as decoration and wanted it banned. They were keen on community education about the dangers of waste on wildlife and came up with the slogan “keep the sea rubbish free.” Bins need to be made more attractive so people are more likely to use them and put them in key spots where fishing line and hooks would be an issue for penguins and platypus. They also came up with the idea of writing to the Prime Minister and state and local governments to share their concerns about waste and ask them to make littering 'even more illegal.'  

After the workshop, many students said they were not going to use fake cobwebs at Halloween or feed bread to kangaroos.

Shadell is going to “tell more people not to litter and help keep the environment clean”, Florence was keen to start a recycling club and Hudson wants to host clean up crews to “keep our rich land clean.”

Andrews Creek Primary School - “Human food is for humans”

Andrews Creek Primary Year 3 students are VERY excited about their local wildlife - we could have spent the whole time talking about their wildlife wonders. After learning about wallabies and kangaroos getting lumpy jaw, platypus and penguins tangled in fishing line, hair ties and string, and bats getting stuck, they were ready to swing into action, the whiteboard quickly filling with ideas. The overwhelming ideas for action were to not litter, pick up rubbish, more bins around dams and rivers and signs asking people not to feed bread to kangaroos and wallabies.

After learning kangaroos can’t eat cookies and bread, Theo pledged to “throw rubbish in the bin.”

Eli pledges to “make sure there are no hair ties on the river” especially near her school where the platypus live.

Charlotte learnt “you can use waste to build new things.”

Turning ideas into action 

A key part of the Waste and Wildlife Education Program is showing that something can be done and the ideas they have may be key for meaningful environmental action. Starting small with what they, their families and the school can do can make a huge difference. 

A parting comment from a student from Penguin Primary School made our day:

"This workshop gives me hope for the future.”

A huge thank you to Sarah Beckett and the staff at Hive Tasmania for organising and running this Science Week event.

Landcare Tasmania’s Waste and Wildlife Awareness workshops are supported by the Tasmanian Waste and Resource Recovery Board, which is funded by the Tasmanian Government.

Find out more about our Education Program