Bribbaree Public School is wondering ‘What’ll happen to the Wattle?”
One Giant leap Australia Foundation sent native golden wattle seeds to the International Space Station in early December 2020.
In collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) the seeds will live in space for six months, returning to Australia to be planted out in 2021.
Supported by the Australian Space Agency the “What’ll happen with the wattle??!” programme was offered to more than 150 schools, scout groups and Australian Air Force Cadets across Australia.
A community panel judged the applications that included 200 words and a short video, explaining what the schools would do with the wattle once it had grown.
One of the panel members said, “We have spent 5 days watching videos. Entries from all over Australia. From a single teacher in a face mask in a school in Victoria to a small school in remote Northern Territory. It has been an amazing opportunity to laugh and cry our way through them.”
Bribbaree Public School has been identified and we are very excited to be conducting this program within our school ground in conjunction with National Tree Day. The seeds are back on earth and will be distributed to the schools in the next couple of weeks. While every day at Bribbaree Public School there is a focus on our environment, we are always working in our kitchen garden and are currently propagating plants for this spring’s garden.
The chosen schools around Australia will receive wattle seeds that have flown to space, plus seeds that have not. The seeds are from the same seed lot. Students are asked to germinate and grow their seeds, recording data about the germination and seed growth. Data will be uploaded to the ‘What’ll happen to the wattle??!’ app.
Throughout the programme, One Giant Leap Australia Foundation will run teleconferences and provide educational support to participating groups.
The 12-month to 2 year project will result in the creation of a nationwide map identifying the location of Australia‘s ‘space wattle’ trees.
At Young Public School, Geoff Davis and his band of Enviro Rangers are putting on their boots and rolling up their sleeves this year to build a nursery to grow local plant species. A sustainability grant through the Department of Education is supporting this project. Young Public School hopes to have plants available to the public in 12 months, with the hope that local residences and farms will plant them to help provide habitat for our local fauna. For this year, Young Public School’s Enviro Rangers were spotted planting Casuarinas along the school’s boundary.
Inspired by Young Public School’s work on collecting, germinating and propagating local native seed the Hilltops Environmental Initiatives Committee have taken on the theme for 2021 of ’Seeding Future Tree Day Events’. In the coming months we will be setting up several workshops to help individuals identify species and collect seeds with the support of experienced locals. These workshops will be followed in early 2022 with germination and propagation workshops so that seedlings will be ready for planting on National Tree Day 2022.
The Committee is inviting the inaugural Councillors of Hilltops to plant a tree with a student from one of Hilltops Schools. Given the current restrictions on visitors to schools, this event cannot actually happen on Friday 30 July but now that the elections have been postponed until December, this event will be held by mid September at the latest.
The Hilltops Environmental Initiatives Committee invite you to follow the lead of our junior citizens to ‘put on your boots and roll up your sleeves’ and plant a tree or two this coming weekend.