Urban stream rehabilitation: enabling school children and community to ‘visualise’ a cleaner, more-healthy urban stream using art, science and the power of imagination (#80)
Leo Robba
1
- WesternSydney.edu.au, Springwood, NSW, Australia
- As part of 2020’s National Science Week’s, Caring for Oceans the Painted River Project ran a day-long outdoor art and science class with 40 year six students from Forest Lodge Public School in Sydney. The students examined, through artmaking (painting) and water science Sydney Water’s Johnstons Creek naturalisation project, Annandale.
- After contacting the school and assessing their interest we set an action plan. Prior to the event, we held online briefings with students and teachers. On the day, we provided paint, brushes, easels and canvases. We then, asked students to carefully ‘observe’ the Creek naturalisation along with showing them creek animals from a clean creek. We then asked them to paint a cleaner more natural creek ecosystem – one they would like to see.
- Through this iteration of the PRP we further refined the integration of artmaking with scientific inquiry in supporting students to make connections between nature (science) and culture (art) and to question how they individually and collectively interact with water and the natural world. The paintings students produced inspired a design of a community-based mural that shares the creative outcomes and what was learnt with the whole community.
- The PRP is designed to offer hope by encouraging people to join together to visualise more sustainable futures, to think global but act locally. Through water and their shared connection to the unique ecology of their place we hope to enable a new ‘planetary consciousness’ by creating new cultural stories that better value our river systems.
Download Full Paper