On Sunday, February 25, 20 attendees joined Landcare Tasmania and Kingston Beach Coastcare at Kingston Beach to become ‘Environmental Superheroes’ in a day of interactive environmental storytelling.
The day included a sing-along with Landcare Tasmania’s Education Officer Bennie Mildren, who wrote the educational tune It’s All a Load of Rubbish, highlighting the impacts of pollution on marine life.
Participants created an ocean of fish and marine animal puppets with the expert guidance of environmental educator Sue Stack.
Children dressed up as superheroes such as Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle, Repurpose and Rot.
“I’m Reduce,” Elsie said.
“I stop things that are harmful to the environment.
“I find other ways of doing things.”
“I’m Regenerate,” Wren said.
“I work with the earth to help things grow again!”
Children were able to guess how long certain types of rubbish take to break down in the ocean in the How long till it’s gone display.
A fishing line takes 600 years to break down.
A plastic bag takes 20 years to break down, and an apple core takes seven weeks.
Following the storytelling and educational activities, participants joined Kingston Beach Coastcare Group to collect rubbish in the surrounding area.
In just 45 minutes, nine kids and 11 adults collected 20 kilograms of rubbish.
“Considering much of the rubbish found was lightweight plastic, this was a lot of waste,” said Education Coordinator Bianca Burford.
This workshop forms part of Landcare Tasmania’s Know Your Local Patch program, which has included five events statewide this year that connect kids and families with their local patch through fun and creative workshops.
Landcare Tasmania is the peak body for the community Landcare movement in Tasmania.
They build resilience and capacity to protect, restore and manage Tasmania’s landscapes by connecting, supporting and educating the community.
There are over 300 member groups, plus individuals, who work on projects in their area to improve the health of our natural and working environments.
This work includes eradicating invasive weeds, revegetating bushland, managing farms to improve sustainability, controlling erosion, cleaning up beaches and much more.
