Audio Transcript

[00:00:03]
Claire Competiello: The kids just love it. The kids really love doing bug hunts, they love exploring, they love learning about plants and animals. It’s not just sitting in the classroom, which is also really important, but when you’re out in the bush and you’re actually surrounded by nature, words don’t describe that experience.

[00:00:22]
Ben Newsome: There is no question that being in nature has positive physical, mental, and social benefits. Well, listen in to hear about the latest updates from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service education team, where they’re doing all sorts of things to inspire students to learn about nature.

[00:00:39]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:53]
Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Big weeks this week because we get to head outdoors. It’s all about what’s happening in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. In particular, it’s about what the education team’s been doing to inspire students and teachers to help them get outdoors and connect with nature.

[00:01:55]
Ben Newsome: In fact, they’ve been doing a lot of stuff for years and years. We know this. But not only can kids just go out to the wild and learn about their wildlife and bushlands and all that sort of thing, there’s a whole bunch more of digital programmes and online resources and teacher training. Not just in wildlife and the environment, but also in Aboriginal culture and their heritage education programme as well.

[00:02:17]
Ben Newsome: So, I hope you enjoy this chat with Jody Orcher, Meagan Vella, and Claire Competiello from the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service education team. They will help inspire you to get outdoors, and it doesn’t matter where you are anywhere on the globe, there’s certainly a way you can connect to.

[00:02:31]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:02:34]
Ben Newsome: Meagan, Jody, Claire, welcome to the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:02:38]
Meagan Vella: Thanks. Hi, how are you? Thanks for having us.

[00:02:42]
Ben Newsome: Oh, absolutely. Stoked to have you on board, especially considering we were very keen to do it a little while ago, only you had a fire alarm in your building which kind of made it a little bit difficult.

[00:02:53]
Meagan Vella: It did. It slightly interrupted us. It was a little bit loud, but it’s great that we’ve got a second opportunity to give this another go.

[00:03:01]
Claire Competiello: Gotta love those technical issues that come up.

[00:03:05]
Ben Newsome: But the beauty about that is that since chatting then and now, so it’s a couple of months down the track now, you’ve got more things going on. But then again, people will be wondering, hang on, who are we talking with? So Meagan, I’ll just start up with you. What do you get up to and all the rest?

[00:03:21]
Meagan Vella: Excellent. Well, my name is Meagan Vella. I am a member of the education team here at National Parks and Wildlife Service, and I’ve been working here for a couple of years now, nearly three years. Prior to that, I’m trained in animal science and science communication. So I followed an interesting path to get here.

[00:03:44]
Meagan Vella: It was actually the science communication that took me down this road. So I worked with Questacon as part of the Questacon Science Circus and travelled around the country, and I got the buzz for educating kids about science. Then I worked with CSIRO when I returned to Sydney. This opportunity presented itself to work with National Parks, so now I’m returning back to my animal science beginnings and getting to educate kids all about animals and the environment wider.

[00:04:14]
Ben Newsome: It’s a fantastic thing. I must say, by the way, I used to work in the environment a long time ago doing bushland regeneration. A lot of fun fixing around a lot of the ecological restoration areas around Sydney, of which there’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s certainly nice to be in amongst the trees without a doubt. And we’ve got Jody here. Hi, Jody.

[00:04:38]
Jody Orcher: Hi, mate. How are you?

[00:04:40]
Ben Newsome: Good thanks. Jody, what do you get up to at National Parks?

[00:04:44]
Jody Orcher: So, I’ve been with National Parks for quite a long time, and I’m an Aboriginal studies teacher. I’ve been working in the department in various roles over the years. In sustainable communities, I’ve done some work with the Botanic Gardens working with plants and within cultural tourism also.

[00:05:08]
Jody Orcher: So I guess I work a lot around Aboriginal cultural heritage but also interpretation, Aboriginal education and also, I guess, creating and structuring governance around how we work within Aboriginal cultural heritage protection for National Parks as well. There’s a whole lot of stuff, so it’s really nice to be back in the education team working in this space for Aboriginal cultural heritage.

[00:05:36]
Jody Orcher: It’s a massive big part of the New South Wales curriculum now, and there are a lot of teachers out there and a lot of schools wanting to know different ways on how they work with cultural heritage in the classroom. So it’s a really exciting time, I guess, to come back.

[00:05:53]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And there’s a whack load of science coming through it as well. I mean, a past guest, the National Indigenous Science Education Programme out of Macquarie University, does a lot of work with some Aboriginal elders out of the north coast of New South Wales with a lot of their bush medicines, actually, and also working with the kids themselves in year 10 and whatnot to engage them in the sciences using the bush. It’s fantastic.

[00:06:21]
Jody Orcher: Absolutely. It’s really important, and I guess one of the things that I’m working on now is just understanding that cross-curriculum and how we’re going to implement understanding cultural context when we’re working within each of the syllabuses, whether it be history, sciences, technology, mathematics, English, language, whatever. But really understanding those processes that Aboriginal people do for engagement, understanding Aboriginal lore, customs, and beliefs, and cultural protocol and stuff like that.

[00:07:05]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, you’ve got a bit on your plate.

[00:07:09]
Jody Orcher: Absolutely. I do, but I love it. And the thing is, it should have been done years ago, but we’re lucky we’re doing it now, and it’s a big step, I think, definitely for Australia and the New South Wales curriculum to incorporate now all of these embedded histories and cultures through the curriculum. So it’s going to be, I think, the next 20 years, the turnover for identity and engagement and reconciliation for Australia, I think it’s going to be an exciting time.

[00:07:44]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And a model that other organisations like yours could easily follow, no doubt. And speaking of having people with things on their plate, Claire, I believe that you’re one of those people.

[00:07:59]
Claire Competiello: Yes, definitely, but all good things. We’ve such a fabulous team here at Parks, and I am really fortunate to recently come in as the team leader. I’ve been with Parks for almost two years, but only a few months in the team leader role. I’ve always worked in environmental education, different roles at Sea World, Botanic Gardens, whale watching, a whole stream of different names. But also a trained teacher in middle years, so focusing on geography and sustainability education.

[00:08:38]
Claire Competiello: So, you know when you end up in one of those jobs that you feel like all your worlds aligned, that you’re just in that dream job where everything you’ve done sort of you were just meant to be here? And I feel like that’s where I am. I’ve got this fabulous team of amazing educators, and we design creative programmes for teachers that really inspire kids to get into nature. So it’s just, yeah, it’s a really wonderful place to be.

[00:09:04]
Ben Newsome: It is a fantastic thing. I mean, did you just say whale watching as well?

[00:09:09]
Claire Competiello: Whale watching, yeah. So a few years back, I was an educator on a whale watching boat, which was a fabulous experience and going out with the whales each day and educating people about their movements and, yeah, it was a fantastic job as well. So probably pretty fortunate actually, all the jobs that I’ve had, I don’t really consider them work. It’s a passion being in the environment and educating people and really inspiring them to get in touch with nature as well.

[00:09:46]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, you’ve got such a terrible workplace with just austere and filled with concrete, by the sound of it.

[00:09:54]
Claire Competiello: So hard to get up each day.

[00:09:58]
Ben Newsome: No, they’re beautiful places. And it is, it’s quite a fantastic position to be in to not only work in those areas but also engage kids with those areas. And that’s exactly what you do, and that’s why I wanted to hear very much about what National Parks and Wildlife Service has been up to. So, I’m just going to open up the floor. I mean, what have you been doing lately to help the kids out with that?

[00:10:25]
Claire Competiello: Yeah, well, actually, it’s a pretty big space we’re trying to tackle a lot of things at the same time, but we’ve got a whole range of different programmes. Obviously our award-winning WilderQuest programme, which has also got a WilderQuest Learning branch for teachers where we provide resources, learning lesson plans, activities for teachers to work with their students to get them connected with nature.

[00:10:56]
Claire Competiello: We’ve got a new programme called RangerVision, which is a citizen science app that teachers can use taking their students outside to photograph plants and animals. A whole range of different programmes like that that work in the STEM space with citizen science and technology. We’ve also, I guess, maybe it’s a probably good idea if Meagan wants to talk about one of, maybe WilderQuest in a little bit more detail. We can either go into some of these in a bit more depth and talk about what’s available to teachers. I think that might be good.

[00:11:31]
Meagan Vella: Sure. So WilderQuest has been designed for children of sort of that primary school age, five to 12 years old. And like Claire was saying, we’ve got sections that are available to anybody that they can play games at home and learn a bit more about our natural environment. But we’ve also got the WilderQuest learning, which has been around for three years now. We’ve got around 1800 teachers worldwide using our WilderQuest resources, which is really exciting to see.

[00:12:04]
Ben Newsome: Wow.

[00:12:05]
Meagan Vella: Yeah. So we’ve got resources there that are all curriculum-linked for stages one, two, and three. We’ve got links to the New South Wales and Australian curriculum. So if you’re from another state, you can still use our resources. And they all link to our natural environments that we feature within the WilderQuest website. We also utilise our WilderQuest app, which is available on iPad, and our wonderful gamification within the website as well. So there’s learning about the plants and animals in each of the environments.

[00:12:44]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, I was going to ask about that before we go too much further on that, just gamification and the environment probably doesn’t come first to mind with some people. What sort of things do they get to do, what sort of games do they get to do on the WilderQuest site that gamifies learning in the environment?

[00:13:02]
Meagan Vella: Yeah, so within every one of our environments there’s different games. There’s a few that are standard across them. So we’ve got a field notebook game where kids can learn about the different plants and animals within the environment. So they’re presented with a series of facts and they have to match the correct ones up, with also a plant version of that game called Flora Card Game and a Guess Who game. So there’s a series of those available. And there’s also other fun little Java-style games as well.

[00:13:31]
Meagan Vella: So they’re available throughout. And what they do when they’re going through the games is they’re earning ranger points, and they can trade those ranger points in within the WilderQuest cubby. That was one of the features that kids said they really wanted when we were designing the WilderQuest website originally. They wanted a section they could customise. So they can trade it in for posters, National Park uniforms, different bedding, there’s a bedroom in there as well, as well as different equipment like virtual drones and things like that. They don’t get any of these things in real life, but it’s all to decorate the cubby, and the cubby is also used to access some other features within the website.

[00:14:09]
Claire Competiello: We’ve also actually recently launched our Campfire, the Aboriginal Education section of WilderQuest, WilderQuest Learning. And that’s got some games in there really to help students to learn about Aboriginal heritage and cultures. And maybe Jody wants to talk about that a bit more because as part of our Campfire we launched our 360 virtual reality videos, which feature our Aboriginal Discovery Rangers from National Parks. And we’ve got eight different videos that look at different ecosystems across New South Wales and really give that immersive experience to children, to adults, by putting on the VR headgear, or you can also look on the internet using just a computer.

[00:14:54]
Claire Competiello: And it gives you that immersive experience of what it’s like to be in that National Park without even visiting. But what’s really special about that is the fact that they’re narrated by Aboriginal education rangers. And so while what we’re trying to do at the moment is to expand that Aboriginal education programme, we’re so fortunate that we have Jody in our team. And so maybe Jody, if you wanted to talk about that?

[00:15:21]
Jody Orcher: Sure. Way back when WilderQuest first started, we designed Ranger Pip along with Ranger Sam. Pip was interesting creating her. She had to be friendly and outgoing and she had to be open to everything. In the end, she was a ranger and she was hosting country.

[00:15:52]
Jody Orcher: One of the good things about WilderQuest is that we go out to Mungo National Park, Tumut National Park, Kosciuszko National Park, and Dorrigo Rainforest. Understanding traditional owners and looking at country from an Aboriginal perspective, you’re able then to understand those environments by the landscape, by the animals, and by the survival or the traditional ways in which Aboriginal people lived.

[00:16:29]
Jody Orcher: They’re actually sharing country and you’re able to go and have a look at an Aboriginal site, have a look at digging sticks. The game is quite interactive, and you can look and dig, using your finger to move some of the apps. When we created the cave for WilderQuest, there were all different little tools; we’ve got coolamons in there, there’s a dreaming spiritual side with the dreaming stories of the Emu in the Sky, and a backdrop of the Brewarrina fish traps. So there is a whole range of different types. You can see the broader range of what you’re dealing with when talking about culture and heritage. It’s not just one thing in the landscape; it’s a way of how Aboriginal people survive and use technology within the natural environment. It’s really good.

[00:17:23]
Jody Orcher: And the new 360 videos now also allow that aerial view of the Discovery Rangers. In some context, the people doing that who are employed by us as Aboriginal Discovery Rangers are traditional owners of country. So that’s really great to have that. We’ve got Coffs Harbour, Sydney Harbour, so being able to look and use the 360 videos in that capacity, you can really understand the different types of lifestyles and the traditional practices used by Aboriginal people from different countries around the state. That’s a really big eye-opener for people to understand the diversity amongst Aboriginal people and why it’s so different around Australia and for New South Wales.

[00:18:18]
Claire Competiello: The other great thing about those resources with the 360 videos is there are lesson plans for teachers on how to inspire their students and help them to understand culture. If you go onto the WilderQuest Learning website, teachers can access those lesson plans as well as the videos because it’s now a cross-curriculum priority to learn about Aboriginal culture and heritage.

[00:18:49]
Claire Competiello: We’re trying to support teachers to do that in a culturally appropriate way because, obviously, we have to respect that this knowledge belongs to the Aboriginal people. We’re fortunate to have fantastic staff who can help to do that and support teachers. With the technology comes the connection to STEM. We’re trying to use technology and think about 21st-century learning for students, engaging them using technology but also connecting with Aboriginal culture and heritage.

[00:19:20]
Meagan Vella: We’ve made the 360 videos as accessible as possible as well. You can just watch it on a computer and click and drag it with your mouse, you can watch it on an iPad, or if your school is lucky enough to have access to VR 360 goggles, you can have the complete immersive experience within the goggles. It’s all available free of charge.

[00:19:45]
Ben Newsome: It sounds like you’re just scratching the surface too, because there’s so much more to go with this tech. You’ve got eight parks done with the Aboriginal Campfire and WilderQuest Learning is just growing and growing. Out of interest, was this development a request from teachers writing in saying, “Hey, we’d like to see this thing”? Or is this something that you saw within your own department saying, “You know what? It’d just be cool if we just did this thing”?

[00:20:16]
Meagan Vella: I think it was one of our previous team members; it was his project that he was working on. We were keen on exploring opportunities within VR or augmented reality. We actually met the producers of our videos, Digilab, at a Science Week event and saw some of the fantastic resources they were already working on and identified that this would be a great way to share our Aboriginal rangers’ experiences with schools.

[00:20:46]
Claire Competiello: It’s a good question actually, because a lot of what we do comes from research from teachers. We continually ask for feedback and really value that feedback to guide where we go with our programmes. We also look at the curriculum requirements from the New South Wales Department of Education and see, for example, that the cross-curriculum priority of Aboriginal culture and heritage is in there and making sure we support teachers in that respect.

[00:21:17]
Claire Competiello: Also, now that there’s an update to the Geography curriculum, we need to support teachers taking students on fieldwork activities. So we use that as a guide and, like Meagan said, looking for new inspirational ideas. We’re always trying to push the boundaries, and that’s where the VR came in. We meet teachers’ needs based on their feedback but also try to explore new opportunities to engage students because we know that if we motivate them and engage them, that’s what gets them out into nature. We’re always looking for new ways to do that and to have them visit parks.

[00:21:52]
Claire Competiello: That’s it as well; it’s that connection using technology to get kids into nature, not just into nature, but into National Parks. We’re really trying to guide as many students as we can to have that National Park experience, a really immersive experience.

[00:22:07]
Ben Newsome: Which I love, and the fact that it’s curriculum linked to the New South Wales syllabus. Not only does it link to Australia, but let’s be honest, people all over the world are connecting with this suite of materials, activities, games, tools, and lessons. It’s a fantastic resource and it makes me wonder from an international perspective, it’s almost surrogate tourism in some ways as well.

[00:22:35]
Claire Competiello: Definitely, which is a good segue into a couple of the other things that we do. These aren’t necessarily directed just at students, but obviously support student education. We’ve got Google Trekker, which is like a backpack that our rangers put on and allows people to almost have that immersive experience on a bushwalk using a GPS tracker and a camera that the ranger wears. They can actually feel like they’re on that guided walk themselves.

[00:23:09]
Claire Competiello: That exactly relates to a tourism aspect because really what we are trying to do is get people into National Parks so we can protect them for the future. Any way we can do that using technology, science, and citizen science, we will. We’ve also recently launched a range of self-guided audio tours where you download an app on your phone and it allows you to have a self-guided tour in certain National Parks.

[00:23:45]
Claire Competiello: For example, Blue Mountains, Royal National Park, Sydney Harbour National Park, and Kosciuszko. You stop at certain points and it provides information about the plants and animals or asks you different questions. It’s a self-guided tour that you download as an app beforehand, so you don’t need internet. This is something teachers can access from our National Parks website. Also, the Google Trekker that I was talking about before is all available on our parks website. While some of these things aren’t necessarily designed specifically for students, they are certainly more tools that teachers can access just by going to our parks website.

[00:24:21]
Ben Newsome: Good fun. Obviously, you’ve got the tech side, but then there’s also the classic just getting students out into the wild and letting them experience it viscerally. I kind of wonder, if we weren’t sitting here having a chat into a microphone and you had a class in front of you. I mean, what are the sort of lessons that you love to run? That you love always going back to, whether it’s Year 3, Year 5, Year 10, that you go, “You know what? This always makes my lesson sing.” These particular activities that grab the kids’ attention. What are the ones that really are fantastic for showing kids about our wildlife and bushland in general?

[00:24:58]
Jody Orcher: So we have our Discovery programme also within National Parks. And Discovery is for school students from 5 to 12 of course, and high school also. It’s really good because depending on where you are then, it is about profiling where you are. So the different landscapes, animals, the different Aboriginal sites that are there, the heritage, historic elements also of the parks.

[00:25:31]
Jody Orcher: So there are all these different things of why, and I guess it can come across whether you’re doing science, technologies, histories, all of those types of things within the syllabus that you’re able to come and bring all of that information what you’re learning in the classroom to life, because these are real places to go to.

[00:25:52]
Jody Orcher: And when you’re with the Discovery Rangers, they’re providing that interpretation for them from that historic view, you’re able to—it’s making everything tangible. So you’re able to go into the heritage sites and really understand the steps of, you know, whether we’re talking about gold diggers or whether we’re talking about Aboriginal rock engravings or things like that.

[00:26:12]
Jody Orcher: Whether we’re talking about a threatened species of animals or plants, you’re able then to really get into understanding the life of these objects and the animals and the places and the trees. And I think when you’re having that tangible—it’s making your experience more real. If you’re touching and smelling and tasting, you have that immersive learning then. It becomes more practical to you.

[00:26:45]
Claire Competiello: The kids just love it. The kids really love doing bug hunts, they love exploring, they love learning about plants and animals. It’s not just sitting in the classroom, which is also really important, but when you’re out in the bush and you’re actually surrounded by nature, words don’t describe that experience where you get to learn by active learning.

[00:27:08]
Jody Orcher: So we have kids dip-netting and looking at the different insects that they find in ponds and the river systems in parks. Or we have through the Aboriginal Discovery programmes, it is very much based on where you are on country then. It’s being able to understand the survival and the technology used, what medicine, what nutrition, what foods were eaten, able to taste them also if you’re there on some foods, I guess.

[00:27:43]
Jody Orcher: But being able to really do it yourself and be your own little self-explorer and having your own discovery of what learning is about. It’s making that programme, and it’s across statewide.

[00:28:02]
Claire Competiello: Yeah, so we’ve got 22 regions across New South Wales, but we run our excursion programmes throughout. And what we really find is by kids having those immersive experiences in parks, they go back—and it’s just fascinating that even one excursion in your life can actually change your life, can change a student to really want to protect our natural areas. So it’s so important those activities, but also for the future survival of our natural areas as well.

[00:28:30]
Claire Competiello: But just getting the kids in there, they love it. They get to go wild without it being the boundaries of the classroom. So it doesn’t matter which excursion they do, whether it’s learning about the National Park or whether it’s one of our threatened animals.

[00:28:49]
Jody Orcher: Exactly, yeah, they just love it.

[00:28:51]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, and it kind of reminds me a bit of—it’s very much five senses really learning. A bit when I was speaking with Danielle Leggo from Sydney Olympic Park Authority and she was recounting how part of teaching about the mangroves is they effectively excrete salt out of their leaves, and the kids don’t realise this and they can actually taste this.

[00:29:14]
Ben Newsome: Now, of course, don’t just go tongue-lashing every casual plant just wondering if there’s salt in there because you might taste the wrong thing, so maybe do that with a bit of guidance. But just the idea that tech has its place and it’s brilliant, but getting kids out into nature is obviously the ultimate goal of this in the first place. But mind you, just still thinking about it, there’d likely be an opportunity for augmented reality whilst kids are out there with their devices, their Android devices or iPads.

[00:29:46]
Ben Newsome: I could imagine using—remember it now—HP Reveal or one of those things where you could look over an Aboriginal artefact and more information could pop up out of your screen. Or you could look at a very close detail of a hopefully static plant because if it’s moving the augmented reality is going to struggle. But there’s a lot of opportunity for even tech whilst they’re out there as well.

[00:30:08]
Claire Competiello: And certainly on that point, there are a lot of opportunities, but we definitely recommend the real experience. We hope that those using technology use it as a tool because nothing beats the real thing. Nothing has that health, physical, emotional, and spiritual positive impact of actually being in nature itself. So while there’s a place for augmented reality and a place for technology, what we’re always aiming for is that real experience as well. But we definitely see the value in using technology as a way to engage.

[00:30:46]
Jody Orcher: And it doesn’t really matter if it’s at the beginning, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s in the middle or the end of what you’re doing in school. As long as having that accessibility and being able to even start in the classroom and end up in the National Park, or come from the National Park and talk more about it in the classroom.

[00:31:06]
Claire Competiello: Exactly. And we try and support teachers to do that because we understand it’s not always the easiest, especially for some of our new graduate teachers. They’ve got so much going on that we really want to guide and scaffold that process. So we start with some experiences outside just in their school grounds and we’re trying to progress them so that they become more comfortable with taking their kids out.

[00:31:31]
Claire Competiello: We’re about to launch a new teacher training package of professional learning for teachers that really supports taking their students themselves. So while we’ve got this amazing excursion programme that we have with National Parks, we’re also wanting to support teachers to take students out into the parks on their own to be able to feel comfortable and confident in leading some of those activities themselves and knowing the content.

[00:31:54]
Jody Orcher: Exactly, yeah.

[00:31:55]
Claire Competiello: There’s one other thing that I did want to share is our young adults campaign, which is a really good resource that teachers can use. So thinking about technology in a different way is our social media. National Parks is leading the way in our social media young adults campaign blog, and it really looks at new ways of showcasing National Parks to inspire people.

[00:32:22]
Claire Competiello: We’ve got some amazing content. So if teachers want to have a look at the new videos and images and stories about our different National Parks through a little bit of a different lens. And it’s just another way to inspire kids because we know that they love the visual side of things.

[00:32:41]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I’m just amazed how much work is going into this sort of area. Especially as sometimes, I suppose sometimes the general public might think of National Parks as being a series of signs in a wilderness somewhere, but there’s so much more happening, really there is. And it’s just a matter of just knowing about that. It’s fantastic you’re getting into social media around that and spreading it around the young adults. But I mean, obviously this could go right up into retirees as well. Do you have education programmes around for the elderly?

[00:33:14]
Claire Competiello: We actually have volunteer programmes, citizen science, we’ve got guided tours that the elderly can book into as well. We’ve got groups, support groups, and our SOS, which is—

[00:33:29]
Jody Orcher: Saving our Species.

[00:33:30]
Claire Competiello: Saving our Species programmes, also about volunteering. And the historical heritage programme, that’s right Jody, as well. So there’s definitely options, it doesn’t matter who you are or what your interests are, there’s something that caters for your needs, whether you’re little children all the way up to get into a National Park.

[00:33:53]
Jody Orcher: And of course destinations, destinations speak for themselves. And whether you want to come for a barbecue or come and have a look at a plant or an animal or just sit on the beach, you know, that relaxation there as well as the education, it’s all there.

[00:34:07]
Claire Competiello: Yeah, and so we kind of consider education as both the formal side of things with our formal programmes, but also the informal of just being in a park. You’re constantly having an educational experience, you’re always learning, and even just to be there, it’s definitely such a worthwhile experience for anyone.

[00:34:28]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, it is very much an exciting time. And I must say, it’s got me thinking I really need to get back out this weekend to go out to a park.

[00:34:35]
Claire Competiello: It’s in human nature, and sometimes we forget how long it’s been since we actually got out into nature. Even for us as well, so like you said, we’ve got so much going on and we’re continually try to expand what we do and provide new creative ways, but also for us—

[00:34:53]
Jody Orcher: For our well-being.

[00:34:54]
Claire Competiello: For our well-being, getting to get out as well.

[00:34:58]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Look Claire, Jody, Meagan, thank you very much for taking a bit away from your busy schedule, especially now you’ve launched your RangerVision app and all this stuff going on. Thank you very much for taking the time out to have a chat on the podcast. It’s been fantastic. And look, obviously there’s going to be links galore that people are going to want to connect with. So where would they best have to look? What website would they need to go to and whatnot to start getting involved with WilderQuest?

[00:35:25]
Meagan Vella: Well for WilderQuest, you can just go to wilderquest.nsw.gov.au. And so from there, you can go to the learning section for teachers, but there’s also information where you can find out more about the WilderQuest Learning programme. And we’re actually working on a nice bit of a redesign of our website, so in about six months there’ll be a new design as well which will be fantastic to see.

[00:35:50]
Claire Competiello: We’ve also got National Parks, so we’ve got the general National Parks page and then we’ve got a special education services page, which is all about our excursions and resources for teachers, because WilderQuest is one of our amazing programmes, but it doesn’t include everything. So it’s really important that teachers look at our education services page and find all the different resources as well as the WilderQuest.

[00:36:11]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And I’ve actually just got it right in front of me right now. So if you go nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/education-services, you will find everything you need to know. It’s all there. And much appreciated. And well, we should go out in the wild again. Much appreciated for your time.

[00:36:31]
Meagan Vella: Thanks Ben. Thank you very much.

[00:36:34]
Claire Competiello: Thanks.

[00:36:36]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the WilderQuest programme support primary school teachers?
WilderQuest Learning provides curriculum-linked resources for Stages 1, 2, and 3, covering both the New South Wales and Australian curricula. With over 1,800 teachers using the platform worldwide, it offers lesson plans and activities that help educators bring nature into the classroom through gamification and digital tools.

What role does 360-degree video play in NPWS education?
In partnership with Digilab, NPWS has developed 360-degree virtual reality videos narrated by Aboriginal Discovery Rangers. These videos allow students to experience diverse ecosystems across New South Wales, such as Mungo National Park and Dorrigo Rainforest, providing an immersive view of the landscape and traditional practices without needing to leave the classroom.

How is Aboriginal Cultural Heritage integrated into the science curriculum?
Through the “Campfire” section of WilderQuest, students learn about Aboriginal perspectives on the environment, including traditional land management, bush medicines, and cultural stories like the “Emu in the Sky.” This approach shows how Aboriginal technology and knowledge are applied to the natural environment today.

What are RangerVision and Google Trekker?
RangerVision is a citizen science app that allows students to photograph and identify local flora and fauna. Google Trekker is a specialised backpack worn by rangers to capture 360-degree imagery of bushwalks, providing a “Street View” style experience for remote tracks that students can explore digitally.

Can the NPWS resources be used if a school cannot visit a park physically?
Yes. NPWS offers a suite of digital tools including self-guided audio tours, virtual excursions, and online gamification. These resources are designed to scaffold teacher confidence, allowing them to start with nature activities in their own school grounds before progressing to physical National Park visits.

Discussion points summarised from the DigitalEd & the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF

Extra thought ideas to consider

Digital Scaffolding for Graduate Teachers
Claire highlighted that new teachers often feel overwhelmed by the requirements of outdoor education. By providing “low-stakes” digital entries and school-ground activities, how can veteran educators help new colleagues build the confidence required to lead physical bush excursions?

Surrogate Tourism as a Conservation Tool
Ben noted that these digital resources act as a form of surrogate tourism. If a student in another country “visits” Mungo National Park virtually, does this create a global network of conservation advocates for Australian biodiversity, even if they never step foot on the continent?

The Multi-Sensory Nature of Learning
While technology is a powerful hook, Jody emphasised the “tangible” experience of smelling, touching, and tasting (with guidance) in the bush. How can schools better balance high-tech classroom preparation with the raw, visceral sensory input that only the outdoors can provide?