Young environmental leaders mark successful year - Lower North

The celebration was a culmination of work by 15 students from Snowtown, as well as Auburn, Brinkworth and Watervale primary schools, with each group doing a presentation highlighting environmental projects undertaken throughout the year.

Natural Resources Northern and Yorke community ranger Julia Alessio says she was impressed with the diversity of projects undertaken by each of the sites in 2014.

Projects undertaken at the schools included: Auburn Primary School bush garden with native bush foods, being more water efficient and creating an aquaponics garden bed; Brinkworth Primary School sustainable garden area; Snowtown Area School decreasing the amount of plastics and waste products at school including presenting all students with reusable wrappers to pack lunches in, and Watervale Primary School reducing waste and water use, promoting recycling and composting and developing a water filtration system including use of grey water filtered through a reed bed and re-used for watering.

Ms Alessio says the federally-funded Caring for Country YEL initiative has far-reaching benefits, with the students involved in three shared forums throughout the year, each hosted by a different school.

“It’s a chance for the students to share ideas and find out what the other schools are doing as well as giving them ownership of the issues affecting their area,” she says.

“It’s a great way for the students to get involved and be part of a like-minded group as well as giving them skills that they can use across other areas of learning as well as make new friends and visit the other sites involved in the project.”

Some places are still available for schools to get involved in the YEL program for 2015.

Information has been sent out to schools, but for more information or to register interest in the program please contact Julia Alessio on 8841 3471 or 0400 362 033 as soon as possible.