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Education for schools

The Queensland Wetlands Program, in partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, has produced a range of interactive education and awareness-raising products to build community understanding of the importance of wetland ecosystems, particularly the Great Barrier Reef catchments. Tools such as the Wetlands Education Toolkit provide ideas, information and activites to support effective wetland education for Science and Geography curriculums.

Queensland Wetlands Program display

Quick facts

More than 200
species of frogs live in Australia. All frogs need to keep their permeable skins and their eggs moist, making wetlands important habitats for frogs. Learn more about frogs on the Frogs of Australia website.

School curriculum—Wetland education toolkit

The Wetlands Education Toolkit is a classroom teaching resource providing a collection of ideas, information and activities to support effective wetland education and is aligned to the National curriculum for Science and Geography. The Toolkit has an emphasis on Years 6 to 9 but has been designed to be adapted by teachers for use across most Primary and Secondary year levels.

Intensive 10-week field-based wetland curriculum

Our Wetlands—a field-based research unit—allows teachers to undertake an intensive wetland module across one full school term of teaching.

The students immerse themselves in wetland topics, develop field assessment skills, grow a complete appreciation of the importance of wetlands and learn to understand the part they play in maintaining and conserving wetlands.

The unit is accompanied by a storythread developed by Pullenvale Environmental Centre and a catchment role play game.

Catchment role play

Storythread

See how students from Tewantin State School and Townsville Central State School implemented the curriculum.

For information about how your school can get involved in the wetland curriculum, contact the Queensland Wetlands Program using the feedback link below.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has developed Science teaching units aligned to the new national curriculum. The units encourage students, teachers and their communities to follow the main aim of the Reef Guardians Program—to be stewards of the environment. The Science teaching units cover a range of Reef related topics from Year 1 to 10, including a wetlands unit for Year 7.

Reef HQ Aquarium Program

Developed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Reef HQ Aquarium Education program contains an interactive GBR Explorer, image and movie libraries and other teaching and education resources such as the Reef Beat series.

Reef Beat is a curriculum-based education program for students from Years 5 to 9.

The curriculum unit Reef Beat—Wetlands—prepared by GBRMPA in partnership with the Queensland Wetlands Program—provides students and teachers with information about the connectivity between wetlands and the Great Barrier Reef. It features popular wetland activities and a range of posters.

Wetlands exhibit at Reef HQ Aquarium

Wetland exhibit

A living wetlands exhibit has been created at Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville, Queensland, which is the world’s largest living coral reef aquarium and national education centre for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The wetlands exhibit provides visitors with an opportunity to experience and view a typical catchment area from the upper catchment to the Reef. It was created to develop community appreciation for the important role coastal wetlands play in sustaining the ecological balance and improving the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.

Reef Knowledge System

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBMRPA) hosts the Reef Knowledge System which has modules containing information on the Reef 2050 Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program.

Wetland on-line education modules

A series of on-line education modules have been prepared as a resource for people who want to learn more about wetlands.

Users can download and use the contents of these education modules to meet their learning and training needs.

This information should be used in conjunction with information found on this website.

Additional information

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Last updated: 30 October 2017

This page should be cited as:

Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, Queensland (2017) Education for schools, WetlandInfo website, accessed 18 March 2024. Available at: https://wetlandinfo.des.qld.gov.au/wetlands/resources/education/

Queensland Government
WetlandInfo   —   Department of Environment, Science and Innovation