Audio Transcript

[00:00:00]
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.

[00:00:17]
Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Glad to have you. It’s a little bit different this week. Normally, we get to speak with someone for quite a bit of time to find out what they’re getting up to with education and science. This time, it’s a whole bunch of educators. Why are we doing that? Because coming up on the 4th of September for secondary schools, and on the 21st and 22nd of November for primary schools, is the Youth Eco Summit.

[00:00:41]
Ben Newsome: It’s a major festival. It’s been held for a few years now at Sydney Olympic Park, right in the heart of Western Sydney. And it’s something that students can get heavily involved with. It’s all sorts of science around environmental education, but it’s not just about experiments and things. It’s also how students can get involved in TED-style talks, student drama, film, music, all sorts of things.

[00:01:01]
Ben Newsome: And if you’re not in Sydney or the surrounding area, you can get involved through video conferencing as well. So everyone’s invited and it’s a bit of fun. So, throughout this particular episode, you’re going to hear lots of short interviews with all the different people who were in last year’s Youth Eco Summit. But if you want to hear about similar stuff for a bit more of a deep dive, maybe jump back to episode 27 where Danielle Lego, who is the main educator for Sydney Olympic Park, talks about their environmental education programmes. That was episode 27.

[00:01:31]
Ben Newsome: And if you want to go a bit further with environmental education, maybe check out episode 25 where we got to hear from Neil Bramsen, the 2017 Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching winner. He’s been doing a lot of work with primary schools with his outdoor classroom ideas. And actually, if you’re in the museums and zoo sector, maybe go to episode 4 of the Fizzics Ed Podcast where we got to speak with Vanessa Pirotta, who at the time was doing a lot of work on science festivals and what works and what doesn’t, especially in an outdoor setting.

[00:01:58]
Ben Newsome: So, I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s a little bit different, but certainly going to be a lot of fun to hear from a lot of people.

[00:02:04]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:02:08]
Ben Newsome: So I’m here with Holy Spirit North Ryde. How you doing, guys?

[00:02:12]
Students: Good!

[00:02:13]
Ben Newsome: All right, so we’re down here at the Youth Eco Summit. Now, you’ve been going around to lots of different tents and seeing shows and workshops and things. What’s some of the coolest things you’ve seen so far? Who’s going first? You’re going first, righto.

[00:02:24]
Student 1: Well, we saw some frogs. We did a silent disco and had a lot of fun. We put some wigs on.

[00:02:35]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, that’s good fun. So the silent disco was with Origin Energy, and we had the Australian Museum, I believe, doing the frog survey. That’s very much true. What else did you see? What did you see?

[00:02:44]
Student 2: I really enjoyed the silent disco.

[00:02:48]
Ben Newsome: We’re getting a theme here. Now, silent disco, what was that trying to actually teach you? Do you remember what they were trying to teach you? Oh, do you remember?

[00:02:55]
Student 3: They’re trying to teach you to save energy. Like, when you’re doing the crank thing, you’re saving energy. Like, when you’re turning the crank, it produces natural energy.

[00:03:12]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, so you’re changing your movement energy, your kinetic energy, into electrical energy, which finally powers all the DJ stuff, which is really, really cool. What else did we see? Let’s go over this way.

[00:03:22]
Student 4: We saw bones of birds and different animals.

[00:03:26]
Ben Newsome: Oh, was that over in that tent over there? What was that all about? You want to go?

[00:03:31]
Student 5: We learned about mangrove trees and we got to lick the leaves.

[00:03:35]
Ben Newsome: Ah, so you learned about birds and actually how they could fly and why they’re useful for an ecological community, and you got licking mangrove leaves. Now, I’m assuming that’s reasonably salty.

[00:03:44]
Students: Yes, very!

[00:03:46]
Ben Newsome: Did anyone not like it? All right, there’s the problem with audio, you can’t see all the hands. We’ve got hands that said they loved it. The rules are that if you’re licking a leaf, you need to know what leaf you’re actually licking. So those people listening in on this podcast, maybe make sure you’re with a botanist who can actually identify the correct thing. But certainly, Avicennia marina, which is certainly all around through here, all these mangroves here, definitely you can definitely do. All right, what else did we see?

[00:04:11]
Student 6: I liked the science experiment of how all the bubbles went everywhere.

[00:04:16]
Ben Newsome: Oh, you’re referring to Fizzics doing some liquid nitrogen stuff? Yeah, yeah. Full disclosure, the kids here just watched a liquid nitrogen show and we just talked about climate change and we talked about frozen bubbles, which is lots of fun. What else?

[00:04:28]
Student 7: We learned about the animals that lived in the mangrove forest.

[00:04:32]
Ben Newsome: Oh cool, what animals do you find in this mangrove and estuarine area? What do you find?

[00:04:37]
Student 7: Ibises and sea snails and crabs and spiders.

[00:04:44]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I actually had to do a mangrove crab survey once when I was at university. It’s lots of fun but also very muddy. All right, what else? Who else hasn’t said something? Over here, what did you find out?

[00:04:53]
Student 8: We learned that what pelicans eat, they eat like snails and crabs, and that if even the snails, like, there was none left, then the pelican would die.

[00:05:07]
Ben Newsome: That wouldn’t be so great for the pelican. What did you find out?

[00:05:10]
Student 9: I found out about all the different types of birds and how there are different types of wings, like wings for flying, wings for camouflage, and wings to like keep them warm.

[00:05:22]
Ben Newsome: That’s right, that was BirdLife Australia. They do a fantastic job when it comes to birds. And you can learn about how planes fly as we hear the plane going overhead as well, very true. Over this way.

[00:05:30]
Student 10: I liked when we had to do Fizzics Education because the science was great, and I liked when he put the bubbles and he took the bubbles out with the tongs and the ice bubbles.

[00:05:46]
Ben Newsome: True. Now, it almost sounds like I’ve had a plant there just to plug what we’re doing, but certainly we had a lot of fun there, very true. Who hasn’t said something yet? All right, over here.

[00:05:54]
Student 11: I liked doing the mandala artwork.

[00:05:58]
Ben Newsome: Oh, that was with Botany Bay Environmental Education Centre. Now, they were doing that artwork with like wood and Banksias and bits. That’s really, really cool. What else?

[00:06:07]
Student 12: We learned that if one population of an animal in the mangrove forest falls, then the other one that eats that will fall as well.

[00:06:15]
Ben Newsome: Generally so. A lot of our fish populations totally depend on mangroves, it’s really, really important. All right, over this way. Oh actually, who hasn’t said something? I want to make sure everyone gets a good chance. All right, over here.

[00:06:24]
Student 13: They taught us in the mangrove tent that the trees are wavy and they weave through to get the sunlight.

[00:06:33]
Ben Newsome: Ah, right. So almost what you see is called phototropism, which is following the light. You see a lot with rainforest plants do that too. Over this way.

[00:06:41]
Student 14: When we were learning about the plants and how like the worms help the plants, and like water you put like water underneath the soil so the plants can suck in the water with its roots.

[00:07:05]
Ben Newsome: So we’ve got Jenny Hughes here from the Royal Agricultural Society. It’s been a flat-out couple of days at the Youth Eco Summit. How’s it been for you?

[00:07:11]
Jenny Hughes: Oh, it’s been fabulous. The weather’s been just glorious for us. The kids have been amazing. We’ve had such a huge number of kids, you know, mainly from Western Sydney, and they’ve just been here to learn. It’s been great.

[00:07:23]
Ben Newsome: So look, you’ve got… I mean, it’s not exactly a static exhibit. We actually do have, you know, cows here to show kids. I mean, what have they been most interested in?

[00:07:31]
Jenny Hughes: Oh, look, you know, the cows are a definite drawcard. You know, Queenie was the star for me, a beautiful, beautiful quiet animal. But look, it’s actually the kids’ fascination. We’ve also been grinding some wheat to produce wholemeal flour, and then talking about what the difference between wholemeal and plain flour and getting rid of the bran that’s the outside.

[00:07:52]
Jenny Hughes: The kids have been amazing. The questions they’ve been asking and they’re like ‘aha’ moments. I love those ‘aha’ moments when the kids go like, “Oh, that’s what you’re talking about.” That’s great.

[00:08:03]
Ben Newsome: And that’s what I love about what this tent’s about, because to be honest, it really is the embodiment of paddock to plate. I mean, it sounds like a simple phrase to say on paper, but getting kids to really genuinely understand that yes, our food comes from somewhere, and seeing the differences is really important.

[00:08:16]
Jenny Hughes: Yeah, and I suppose what we really try and focus on is, look, it’s pretty easy, it’s very easy to ask Mr. Google, you know, where does that come from? But it’s what actually happens from the farm gate before it hits their plate or the supermarket. It’s all that process, because that’s where all the technology and all the… where we really need some bright brains in the future to make it more amazing than it already is to feed the population.

[00:08:39]
Ben Newsome: Massively so. As a population grows, they’re going to need to eat. Like, it’s straightforward. And also, not just eat for the sake of it, like wholesome stuff and hopefully have less food mileage in the first place.

[00:08:49]
Jenny Hughes: Well, exactly. And that’s the sort of things, being the sustainability summit, really looking at that, the food miles that product has to travel and, you know, the sustainability of making that happen more eco-friendly.

[00:09:00]
Ben Newsome: Fantastic. Look, thanks very much for jumping on, especially seeing that you’re now starting to pack up the tent before the storm rolls in. I know we’ll catch you again at the Youth Eco Summit. You guys have been a great supporter of this and thanks very much for coming along.

[00:09:15]
Jenny Hughes: Thanks, Ben. It’s been great.

[00:09:23]
Ben Newsome: All right, so we’re here at the Royal Botanic Gardens tent and you guys look after Mount Annan as well. You’ve got a lot going on that way.

[00:09:29]
Guest: Yeah, and Centennial Park.

[00:09:32]
Ben Newsome: So you have four sites? It’s serious, it’s pretty big. Now, obviously we’re here at the Youth Eco Summit, we’ve got kids doing stuff. Now let’s just describe what you guys are doing.

[00:09:42]
Guest: Ah, well, over here we’re looking at all different kinds of seeds. So, seeds that fly, seeds that dig, seeds that catch onto your clothing, and how they get around and how plants spread themselves.

[00:09:54]
Ben Newsome: And considering the wind today, the dispersal mechanism would be quite good. And actually, I watched kids doing some craft activities with some paper for the winged seeds, it’s pretty neat.

[00:10:03]
Guest: Yeah, making little paper helicopters because for the helicopter seeds.

[00:10:07]
Ben Newsome: And in your tent here, what are you showing over this way?

[00:10:09]
Guest 2: So we’re looking at sustainable gardening. So we’re looking at ways that schools can make their gardens more sustainable, looking at composting, worm farming, also water-saving techniques for the garden so they can go back and create some wonderful organic fruit and veg without using too many resources.

[00:10:25]
Ben Newsome: It always makes me interested about these sort of sessions because kids get really, really excited about these sort of sessions and they want to go home and make stuff. Did many kids come to you and go, “Oh yeah, I’ve got a compost garden at home,” or is it something new that they haven’t heard about?

[00:10:37]
Guest 2: I think most of these kids probably don’t have one at home, which is a shame, but a lot of the schools are getting right into it at the moment, which is fantastic. And the garden network around the schools is amazing, some schools are doing a great job there. So a lot of kids are familiar with the composting and worm farming, which is good.

[00:10:55]
Ben Newsome: No worries. So what else is going on at the back there? So we’ve got all sorts of seeds here. I’m seeing Hakea, I’m seeing… oh, what’s the one at the back there? It almost looks like cocoa, but it’s not. What is that?

[00:11:04]
Guest 1: Yeah, it is. It is cocoa. Yeah, it is. So there’s lots of different seeds here and some of the stuff that’s really interesting, like where chocolate comes from and smelling all the different spices and stuff like that, you know, just to get the senses going when you’re looking at the world as well.

[00:11:19]
Ben Newsome: Which is their favourite one they look at?

[00:11:21]
Guest 1: Oh, they all seem to be interested in the spices because I think it reminds them of Mum’s cooking. So they’re like shaving the nutmeg and smelling the cinnamon and the vanilla. And I’m surprised that chocolate’s still here actually.

[00:11:37]
Ben Newsome: I actually thought a kid had left it behind to be honest.

[00:11:40]
Guest 1: See what you mean.

[00:11:41]
Ben Newsome: No, this is fantastic. And look, you guys do a fantastic job. And if anyone listening has not been down to the Australian Botanic Gardens, it’s often missed, like Mount Tomah is wicked as well, but often people don’t realise there’s a seriously important seed bank down there. Have you guys got much to do with that?

[00:11:56]
Guest 1: Oh, not really. Sometimes, because I do an outreach programme, so sometimes when I’m out and about throughout regional areas, I collect some seeds for some of the researchers and they do a bit of work with those, which is always a lot of fun, and the students and the young people love getting involved in those citizen science type programmes as well.

[00:12:14]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. And you guys had a massive event with the Jurassic Garden thing only a few months ago as well. That was a good few thousand people rocked up to that, which is really cool. And Centennial Parklands does a lot of stuff there too, especially with Lachlan Swamp.

[00:12:28]
Guest 1: Yeah, yeah, well, we’ve got a bat colony at Lachlan Swamp and all kinds of things happen at Centennial Park. And nowadays we’ve got a Wild Play Garden there, which is the latest attraction. So getting the kids wet and dirty and having fun digging and climbing and all that kind of stuff. So it’s really good as well. It’s what they should be doing.

[00:12:45]
Ben Newsome: Exactly. They should be doing it more and more of it. Hey guys, I’d love to chat more. I’ve actually got a whole bunch of kids lining up for another liquid nitrogen show for me, so I probably should turn up and go do my thing, but enjoy your afternoon.

[00:12:55]
Guest 1: Yeah, thanks very much. See you later.

[00:13:15]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, we’ve got kids teaching kids here at Beresford Road and Botany Bay. So basically they’re the experts and they’ve been making some artwork, some nature mandalas, and we’ve got them doing artist talks to the kids from Plumpton and all the other visiting schools.

[00:13:33]
Guest: Yeah, so once the students have a look at the gallery and look at some samples, then they come out to these tables and they’re creating their own artwork, take a photo, and then they could perhaps be inspired to do it back at their schools. So it’s a really good hands-on activity.

[00:13:48]
Ben Newsome: Now, even just looking there, I can think I can see some Coastal Banksia by the look of it. I can’t see the other bits, what are the other bits that you’ve got? I’m guessing it’s from your Botany Bay region, right?

[00:13:56]
Guest: Oh, no, it’s a bit of a mixture. Some of the stuff’s come from Kurnell, some from the Blue Mountains, and some from my mum’s place out at Orchard Hills. She’s even got her friends to collect stuff. So we’ve got pine cones and everything from different types of leaves to feathers and found nature objects, basically.

[00:14:15]
Ben Newsome: So, with a nature mandala, obviously kids love their art. I mean, how are you using that to be able to teach environmental messages?

[00:14:22]
Guest: Okay, so what the students at Beresford Road were doing, they were studying a geography unit for Stage 3, and the unit was about Asia and our Asian neighbours. What they did was they read a book called Elephants Have Wings and in there was a nature mandala and so they were inspired to make nature mandalas and they used that as an idea to present here at the Youth Eco Summit.

[00:14:52]
Ben Newsome: It’s fantastic and you know, obviously it’s really highly engaging. I must say it looks like you’d actually have trouble getting the kids out of your tent, to be honest.

[00:14:59]
Guest: What’s amazing is some of the kids ask you what the objects are on the table. So I don’t think they get to play with the seed pods and sticks and things out in nature enough.

[00:15:20]
Ben Newsome: So the Youth Eco Summit is still running along. We’re here with Venera Owens from NRMA and you guys have been having a fun time down there. What’s been happening down there?

[00:15:27]
Venera Owens: Oh, we’ve been looking at new technologies, new transport technologies, and we’re actually telling children that flying cars are real and that in the next few years they may not be buying a petrol-driven engine, that they may actually be buying a car that’s an electric car, and that this car might actually be driverless.

[00:15:45]
Venera Owens: So what we’re trying to do is encourage children to think about how the world is changing, what technologies are impacting on transportation, and what that means about their future career choices. What subjects they study at school so they’re ready for this new world.

[00:15:59]
Ben Newsome: And considering like you’ve got the car down there, the kids have been very interested to think and move around, and it’s silent as a mouse, it’s even solid too. But these things are real and they’re coming at us very fast. I mean, and I love the fact that this generation is the group that will end up learning to drive on these things.

[00:16:13]
Venera Owens: Absolutely. We’ve got our electric car, it’s not driverless at the moment, but yesterday I was at a pilot, a test run of a driverless shuttle bus that’s being run at Sydney Olympic Park that we’re partners in. And it’s truly amazing. You just sit in it and it does its own thing.

[00:16:31]
Venera Owens: It’s got LiDAR and it’s got GPS to very, very sophisticated satellites allow it to predict its space on the road to three centimetres. It’s the new technology. At the moment we’re testing that with other partners. The aim is of course to bring it into an environment with real people and real cars and see how it goes.

[00:16:51]
Venera Owens: And this is the sort of stuff that’s going to revolutionise the way we travel and the way we move from place to place.

[00:16:57]
Ben Newsome: What I love about this is just how the safety aspects are going to be phenomenal. If you’ve got a million cars that all networked up, that means they can talk with each other and detect their own environment. The safety’s going to be very safe. And also from a sustainability point of view, you’d hope that there would be less fuel being used purely because these things are far more efficient.

[00:17:15]
Venera Owens: Well, that’s the thing is, we forget about the fact that the people that drive cars on the road, us human beings, we’re very unsafe. I mean, 97% of crashes or thereabouts are caused by human error. So we shouldn’t really worry about machines running roads for us because they’re going to do a much better job than we humans are doing.

[00:17:35]
Venera Owens: So we’re going to have safer roads and we’re going to have cleaner roads because in Australia, transport emits 13% of all airborne pollution and gases, and even just the family car’s about 8%. So we’re breathing all that and people are dying prematurely from the really dirty environment that we’re living in.

[00:17:55]
Ben Newsome: This is fantastic and this is why having NRMA helping out with the Youth Eco Summit, it’s been so important. I mean, you are in the precinct at Sydney Olympic Park, but very much you are the heart of the motoring group right across our state, it’s fantastic.

[00:18:09]
Venera Owens: Oh, we love being in the education team because we get to talk to children and also to adults about these new technologies. Most adults are really focused on the here and now and they don’t really know what’s around the corner. And around the corner are driverless cars, car sharing.

[00:18:27]
Venera Owens: The way in which we transport ourselves is going to change dramatically because Sydney is gridlocked and we need to find a new way. We’re heading towards what they call Car-mageddon, which is cars just stuck on the road going nowhere. And we’re trying to do our bit to change the way people think about mobility.

[00:18:45]
Venera Owens: We don’t need to own our own car to get where we need to be, we just need to have access to someone else’s car, a car that’s on the road 24 hours a day working rather than sitting in our garage for 22 hours a day and we’re paying heaps of money to keep it there.

[00:18:59]
Ben Newsome: It seems nuts. And to be honest, I love the fact that we’ve got some bright minds looking to do something about it and not just talk about it, actually enact things that actually make it real, which is fantastic.

[00:19:08]
Venera Owens: The students are terrific. Their ideas about the future and how this is going to impact on them, I think that primary school children are so open-minded when it comes to new technologies and they’re really thinking about the what-if scenarios and I think they’re really commendable.

[00:19:35]
Ben Newsome: All right, so I’m about to do a liquid nitrogen show with… is Plumpton Public we’ve got here?

[00:19:40]
Students: Sure is!

[00:19:41]
Ben Newsome: All right, so what have you guys got to do so far?

[00:19:44]
Student: Oh, we have painted ourself with Aboriginal paint and sharpened some rocks.

[00:19:50]
Ben Newsome: That sounded like the Murama thing down on the side, isn’t it?

[00:19:53]
Student: Yes.

[00:19:54]
Ben Newsome: What other stuff have you got to do? So yeah, I can see you’re covered in paint with all from the different clays and things like that, all the different ochres and things. What else have you got to do so far?

[00:20:03]
Student: We got to look at cows.

[00:20:05]
Ben Newsome: So that’s with the Royal Agricultural Society. Got to look at cows. What did you learn about the dairy industry there?

[00:20:11]
Student: Cows make milk.

[00:20:12]
Ben Newsome: They do make milk. Absolutely. Now, did someone say something about bees?

[00:20:17]
Students: Yeah!

[00:20:18]
Ben Newsome: What happened with the bees?

[00:20:19]
Student: We learned about native bees and how they help like pollinate things.

[00:20:25]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, what did you make?

[00:20:26]
Student: The seed bomb ball.

[00:20:28]
Ben Newsome: Awesome. Actually, now you guys are out at Plumpton now, you’re out in the Cumberland Plain Woodland area, so there are a lot of native bees out where you are, very, very much so. Miss, how have you found this today?

[00:20:40]
Guest: It’s been really good. This is my third year here and it’s very valuable for the kids.

[00:20:45]
Ben Newsome: And considering the Youth Eco Summit has only been going for a couple of years, that would make you a veteran.

[00:20:49]
Guest: Pretty much.

[00:20:50]
Ben Newsome: You’re calling me old.

[00:20:51]
Guest: No, no. It means you’re experienced and you know what you’re doing here.

[00:20:54]
Ben Newsome: Now I know that you guys have been involved and actually we’ve been out to your school with the GWS Giants as well, and you guys have a lot of fun with that stuff. And look, speaking of which, I really should start doing some liquid nitrogen because we’ve got a hot day and I’m watching these clouds come on in and I’m just wondering what’s happening next. So anyway, let’s get going guys, we’re going to play with some liquid nitrogen. We cool with that?

[00:21:12]
Students: Yes!

[00:21:13]
Ben Newsome: Right, we better get going.

[00:21:24]
Ben Newsome: The sun’s coming down pretty hard now. It’s about lunchtime. The kids must be really happy with your positioning.

[00:21:29]
Guest: Yes, it’s in a really nice shady spot and we’re near the cauldron, so every time the wind blows that water across, we get a bit of a nice cool shower.

[00:21:37]
Ben Newsome: Early yesterday morning for the first day of the Youth Eco Summit, I saw a school sitting too close to that cauldron. Ah, if you’re wondering, those people listening, where Cathy Freeman stood for the 2000 Olympics where she got raised up to light the fire, well, it’s up on a stand here but they’ve also turned it into a bit of a fountain and every now and then it rains on you. It’s true. So what have you been doing with the kids at the Eco Summit?

[00:21:58]
Guest: Well today our focus is on sustainable houses and we’re actually talking to the kids on how to have a sustainable house. So talking about renewable energies and how we can keep our house cool, different ways using solar energy and, you know, switching off our power points when we’re not using our appliances. So quite a lot of things and it’s quite interactive.

[00:22:26]
Guest: The kids are helping us actually design the house. We have it there on boards and the kids come out with their little Velcro pictures and they stick them in. You know, use your curtains to keep out the sunlight rather than put on your air conditioner to keep your room cool. So lots of different ways of making your house more sustainable.

[00:22:43]
Ben Newsome: Sustainability has been a big thing in primary education for a number of years now and definitely the fact that you’re doing it out in the open, it would just be interesting as groups come through. Are you finding the kids very much know what you’re talking about or are you having to teach them right from the start?

[00:22:56]
Guest: Oh no, the kids are really cluey about sustainability. I think teachers are teaching them in their classroom, it is part of the syllabus now. So yeah, they’re pretty good. And some of the kids are saying, “Oh, we have a solar heater on our house. We have solar panels on our house. You know, and we have a rain tank.” So, you know, I think even parents at home are, you know, now starting to think more sustainably and it’s good to see.

[00:23:23]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I mean especially, I mean Australia’s got a lot of sun, massively so. And it’d be actually interesting, we’ve got listeners all over the world and I know that actually I saw some people actually in Iceland are listening. They’ve got a different head space around how their sustainability works because hey, they’ve got geothermal and that type of thing. Each to whatever you’ve got around the place, right?

[00:23:41]
Guest: Yeah, that’s right. So we talk to the kids about us having a very hot climate and, you know, often we have a cycle of drought, so, you know, to conserve water and why that’s important. So yeah, that’s right.

[00:23:53]
Ben Newsome: Fantastic. And I’m sitting here in your tent here out of the sun just for a moment and we’ve got a number of fauna specimens here. And I guess it’s the sort of thing you would see at Observatory Hill, right?

[00:24:02]
Guest: Yes, these are some of our Australian animals and we’ve got a collection here and we’ve asked the kids to come in and have a look and see if they can identify which of these are not Australian native. And it’s interesting, we’ve got a Tawny Frogmouth here and the kids think it’s an owl. A lot of kids think that’s an owl, so that’s the tricky one.

[00:24:23]
Guest: And they some of them have picked that the Indian Myna is not native. So yeah, they’re pretty good, they love the animals.

[00:24:30]
Ben Newsome: So I mean, my biology’s a little bit rusty these days, but am I looking at Rattus rattus or Rattus fuscipes or something like that? Like what am I looking at here?

[00:24:37]
Guest: Yeah, so we’ve got a native Bush Rat here and we’ve also got a Black Rat here. So the Black Rat’s not native. Yeah. So, and another thing I wanted to mention too that the kids have been doing too under our tree is at the end of the workshop we’re actually giving them an iPad and we’re using a designing house app and we’re asking the kids to actually design a sustainable house.

[00:24:59]
Guest: So they actually create the rooms and then they furnish them and they’ve really enjoyed that as well.

[00:25:05]
Ben Newsome: That’s really cool, especially when kids like not quite understanding that insulation and double glazing is just as important as putting solar panels on the house, especially in our climate for sure.

[00:25:14]
Guest: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:25:28]
Mike Bartlett: So we’ve got Murama who are a part of the Youth Eco Summit. So it’s like one of those songs where you’ve got this featuring that. So this year we’ve got the Youth Eco Summit featuring Murama, and Murama is a youth indigenous summit.

[00:25:41]
Mike Bartlett: We’ve been in camp now for a couple of days with about 50 young Aboriginal students from secondary schools around Greater Sydney and from the ACT learning about culture, connecting to culture. And as they’re doing that, they’re now given in the Eco Summit an opportunity to shine, an opportunity to share that culture with primary school students in a kind of a kids teaching kids model. So yeah, it’s worked out really well.

[00:26:03]
Ben Newsome: No, it’s been brilliant. I’ve been seeing kids all with ochre across their bodies. I’ve seen a lot of learning how to use the woomera to throw spears. I mean, there’s a lot of science, but also I just love the fact that kids can connect with their culture and they live in this area.

[00:26:14]
Mike Bartlett: Yeah, exactly. Look, it’s very curriculum based and most of the students who are delivering these cultural activities wouldn’t know that because for them it’s culture. But yeah, science, technology, you know, social technologies of indigenous culture are in there as well.

[00:26:27]
Mike Bartlett: But we’ve had art, we’ve had didge and dance, we’ve had songlines, storytelling, oral histories, weaving, string making, and look, a lot of fun besides.

[00:26:38]
Ben Newsome: Ah, it’s fantastic. Look, Mike, you and the team at Sydney Olympic Park have put on yet another fantastic show. We’ve kept the weather away for maybe another hour or so and look, you’ve got to get going because they’re about to do a full ceremony for Murama.

[00:26:49]
Mike Bartlett: I can see, yeah, we’re finishing up this afternoon after a couple of hard days’ work. But, you know, we’re as the t-shirts say, standing tall, walking strong, and thanks Ben, appreciate your support here too.

[00:26:59]
Ben Newsome: Mate, we’ve had a blast. Take it easy.

[00:27:11]
Ben Newsome: All right, so I’m here with our great mate Emad Elkheir from the GWS Giants. We’re here at the Youth Eco Summit. Dude, love your work. What have you guys been doing today?

[00:27:17]
Emad Elkheir: Today’s been running around, I’m just checking out the workshops we’ve got today, about 500 students that we’ve brought in, if not more, from about five different schools. Just giving them that opportunity to be involved in what I believe is the best event of the year.

[00:27:32]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, you guys are full on. You’re like the hidden infrastructure that makes an event like this run. Like, it wasn’t just today. Like, how many schools did you bring in yesterday?

[00:27:38]
Emad Elkheir: Yesterday, again, I think we had about nine schools involved from our end. 1,200 students or so, getting involved from all Western Sydney. We have schools from Greystanes, Bankstown, Plumpton, Claymore, all over the place. Private and the public sector, all together to get, for an extremely important cause, which is the environment and sustainability.

[00:28:03]
Ben Newsome: Exactly right. And you guys do a fantastic job when it comes to promoting environment, sustainability, and really science in general. I mean, love your work. So what have you got doing for the rest of the afternoon? You get to kick back and relax, or you got more stuff going on?

[00:28:15]
Emad Elkheir: Kicking back and relax? I don’t think that exist in any of our vocabulary anyone. I don’t understand what are you what is this thing you saying? Speaking a different language. Ah no we’re just making sure everything’s running smoothly keeping our schools happy making sure they’re at their workshops at the right time their buses are good to go all that behind-the-scenes stuff that doesn’t get any glory to it but makes an event happen I guess.

[00:28:40]
Ben Newsome: No, seriously, without you guys, an event like this wouldn’t happen. With you and the team at Sydney Olympic Park, you’re kicking it. And those people who are wondering, the GWS Giants, I know that we’ve got people all over the world listening, they are a major sports team in Western Sydney and only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Spotless Stadium.

[00:28:55]
Ben Newsome: In fact, I can see it right now. So if you happen to go to Sydney, you happen to be around during the footy season, go see the Giants. Look for the orange and grey and those guys do a massive job in the community. They’re fantastic.

[00:29:04]
Emad Elkheir: Mate, not as good as the Fizzics team does, trust me.

[00:29:06]
Ben Newsome: Oh dear, oh dear, here you go again. Thanks very much, Emad Elkheir, have a great day.

[00:29:10]
Emad Elkheir: Have a lovely day. Thanks for your support, Ben.

[00:29:27]
Ben Newsome: Okay, so we’re in the last few moments of the Youth Eco Summit. I’m just here with the Australian Museum people are trying to pack down their stuff and I’m harassing them, but geez you guys were busy with your event. So how’d it go?

[00:29:38]
Guest: It was awesome. We had a lot of interest from the children about the live frogs we had here and also about the new app that we’ve just launched. And we’re hoping that we get a lot more people making recordings of frog calls and taking an interest in the local frogs in their environment.

[00:29:54]
Ben Newsome: I love it because that’s very much citizen science and kids just love this and being involved. Tell us more about that app because hey, I’d love to know more myself.

[00:30:02]
Guest: Okay, so it’s a free app. You can download it for iOS and for Android. And all you do is you download the app, you go out to anywhere you think you hear a frog, including your backyard or the local park, or you can go anywhere in Australia.

[00:30:17]
Guest: If you think you hear a frog, you open up the app, you press record, and then if you take a 20-second recording or more, then you will get an option of frogs that are near you that it might be, and you can take a guess and think of which one you think it might be, and you hit submit.

[00:30:33]
Guest: And then it goes to the Australian Museum and we check it out and we go, “Yeah, you did a good job, that’s exactly the right frog.” And then that can be used for distribution and population data and we can do all sorts of wonderful things with that information.

[00:30:45]
Ben Newsome: That’s awesome. And you weren’t just promoting an app, you actually had live frogs here. I’m looking around, what do we got here? Which ones we got?

[00:30:50]
Guest: Okay, these are Frog and Tadpole Study Group of New South Wales frogs, and we’ve got Litoria caerulea, which is the Australian Green Tree Frog. This one is Godzilla. He’s 25 years old. And Green Tree Frogs can live for up to 35 years. They start off really tiny and they grow and grow and grow for all that time.

[00:31:07]
Guest: So they’re really spectacular frogs and everyone in Australia loves a Green Tree Frog. Sadly, not as common in urban areas as they used to be. They used to be very common in urban Sydney and now you only see them in the outer suburbs, but they’re still pretty common right across Australia, except in Victoria and Tasmania where it’s a bit cold for them.

[00:31:23]
Guest: We also have the most common frogs in Sydney. We’ve got the Peron’s Tree Frog, Litoria peronii, and the Striped Marsh Frog, which is Limnodynastes peronii. And lots of things are named peronii because Francois Peron was a famous French naturalist and he discovered lots of things and lots of things are named after him.

[00:31:39]
Guest: But that’s the most common tree frog and the most common ground frog. And today we’ve been telling kids how to tell the difference between ground frogs and tree frogs by looking at their feet.

[00:31:50]
Guest: So, tree frogs have special toe pads at the end of their toes and they can use that to climb vertical surfaces like your letterbox or your window. And the ground frogs have long, slender toes and they burrow into leaf litter or some of them even fully underground.

[00:32:04]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, do you have kids sometimes just come in and just go, “Oh, I can’t look at frogs, I’m scared of frogs, I don’t want to touch a frog,” or are they pretty chilled out with it?

[00:32:10]
Guest: Okay, some kids go, “Oh, I think that frog’s a bit scary,” but most of them we win round.

[00:32:15]
Ben Newsome: Yeah, it’s good. And actually, being in the heart of Sydney Olympic Park, we are very close to the Green and Golden Bell Frog area, which is just around the corner here.

[00:32:22]
Guest: Yep, we brought some Green and Golden Bell Frogs. We’re really lucky to have them. They are not doing well in the wild. It’s wonderful that there is a sanctuary for them here at the Brickpit at Sydney Olympic Park. And they are surviving in some of the ponds around Sydney Olympic Park and in other areas, but they’re only isolated breeding populations left now and it’s not looking good for their future.

[00:32:41]
Guest: So we’re very, very excited to have them here today because for a lot of people, this may be the only Green and Golden Bell Frogs you ever get to see.

[00:32:47]
Ben Newsome: That’s true. And I suppose maybe, maybe the most likely way they’ll interact with it is actually through the app perhaps just to let it, hear it, rather than not see it.

[00:32:54]
Guest: They will be able to hear it. And we’re really, really lucky with the app because we’ve got frog calls on the app of even including some of the extinct species in Australia. We were really lucky that people made those recordings before the frogs completely disappeared.

[00:33:06]
Guest: And already in the first couple of days, we’ve had frogs that there were no recordings of the calls available, we had people going out and finding them for us. So there’s a couple of species from the Northern Territory that there was no recording and someone found them and said, “Here you go, you can use this recording.” So it’s been really brilliant. It’s amazing how much people are getting behind this.

[00:33:25]
Ben Newsome: Ah, it’s a win. That’s a total win. Hey, well done. I know you’ve been very, very busy with this and I should let you be. It’s Friday afternoon, let’s try to pack up and run away.

[00:33:33]
Guest: Oh, we’ve got someone else to say something. Yes!

[00:33:34]
Guest 2: If you want to find out more about the FrogID app, please just go to the FrogID website. So either Google FrogID or go to the Australian Museum website and you’ll be able to find the website for FrogID which has all of your download links, teachers’ resources, everything you could possibly want and more information on how to get involved.

[00:33:51]
Ben Newsome: There you go, everyone, you got homework. All right, have a great afternoon.

[00:33:54]
Guest: Thank you.

[00:34:04]
Ben Newsome: So, Kate, it’s the last session. We’re all dealt with. Pretty much all the last kids have just jumped on the bus from the Youth Eco Summit. My gosh, I don’t think you got a chance to even get a drink or food. You were flat out. Oh by the way, Kate is from the Taronga Zoo and my gosh, you’re somewhat popular.

[00:34:18]
Kate: It was very, very popular. I had four animals and the animals all loved meeting probably a few hundred kids.

[00:34:25]
Ben Newsome: And then some. That’s true. So what which animals did you have? Because frankly, I couldn’t see through the throng of crowd.

[00:34:32]
Kate: So, I had a possum, a Ringtail Possum, and I had a Blue-tongue Lizard, a Spotted Python, and a oh, not my memory. A White-lipped Tree Frog as well. So four altogether.

[00:34:44]
Ben Newsome: And this is the thing about the four animals. You always have to say which one’s the most popular because as you bring it out, every kid just gonna go “Wow” each time. Which one turned to be like, wow, just generated the most questions?

[00:34:54]
Kate: Well, this one is always a winner. It’s always a favourite, the snake. So, “Snake, snake, snake!” And I’m so glad I brought a snake because they were very excited. Luckily, the Spotted Python is a nice introductory, like it’s a nice introduction to snakes.

[00:35:08]
Kate: Some of the kids had a few fears, but it was really nice to see them face their fears when they all touched the snake and they were very, very interested, asked lots of questions about them and about the snake and the other animals as well, but yeah, I think the snake is always a fave.

[00:35:21]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Now, did the kids actually when they were interacting for example with a snake or not, well, were they concerned whether it was carnivorous, whether it ate plants, did they have a bit of idea about its biology or is it really their first time they’ve ever come in contact?

[00:35:32]
Kate: Yeah, so a whole range, range of kids. So, there was kids I noticed that came down from the Blue Mountains who were telling me that they see these kind of animals, so snakes and lizards and possums, in their even in their backyard or around their school grounds. So yeah, a lot of them had stories for me about what they saw and venomous snakes as well.

[00:35:50]
Kate: But then there was other kids who had never met any of the animals and it was a completely new experience for them. So it was a good range. Yeah, and I guess I just worked, worked around that.

[00:36:00]
Ben Newsome: And that’s what the Youth Eco Summit’s all about is yeah, kids actually teaching other kids also in some ways. And to be honest, having as much variety as possible on something like this is fantastic. And the fact that you guys could come on down for this day is just brilliant and much appreciate for coming along.

[00:36:14]
Kate: Yeah, thank you. It was awesome. It was a really good experience. Lovely to meet, yeah, lots of very, very excited kids. And yeah, I think the animals will have a good night’s sleep tonight. Except for the possum who’ll be running around all night.

[00:36:25]
Ben Newsome: Yes, they do that. Very much so. But hey, you know, there, that’s the thing. They are, you know, crepuscular, they, they do, you know, hang out at night time and that’s their thing. You can’t change that.

[00:36:35]
Kate: Yeah, that’s right. Yep.

[00:36:37]
Ben Newsome: Cool, hope you had a good day too.

[00:36:38]
Kate: Ah, it was good fun.

[00:36:40]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop in your school? We love seeing students get excited about science and you will too. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au and click on schools for more info.

[00:36:56]
Ben Newsome: Well there you go, that’s the Youth Eco Summit. I hope you enjoyed just hearing just a short selection of the entire offering at the Youth Eco Summit. And I really hope that if you’re in a secondary school that you can pop over for the 4th of September and if you’re a primary school, pop over on the 21st and 22nd of November.

[00:37:12]
Ben Newsome: It is well worth your time. And as I said at the start, you can get involved even if you’re not in the Sydney metropolitan area, definitely so. So definitely just go find out, type in Youth Eco Summit into Google or your favourite search engine, just type in Sydney as well. You will find the Sydney Olympic Park page and you can find out all about it and how to sign up for your school.

[00:37:32]
Ben Newsome: It’s well worth your time. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. It’s a little bit different, as I said at the start, and we’re going to go back to our normal programming next week with some more interviews with some top science educators. But until then, I hope you’re making your classroom, your zoo, your aquarium, your museum, wherever you happen to be teaching science, as great and as vibrant as possible for the learners that you’ve got on hand.

[00:37:54]
Ben Newsome: You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I’ll catch you next week.

[00:38:00]
Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S.

[00:38:26]
Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the purpose of the ‘silent disco’ at the Youth Eco Summit?
The silent disco, supported by Origin Energy, is an interactive way to teach energy transformation. Students use a hand crank to convert their kinetic energy into electrical energy, which then powers the DJ equipment and music.

How can students contribute to scientific research using the FrogID app?
The FrogID app, developed by the Australian Museum, allows students to record frog calls in their local environment. These recordings are verified by experts and used to track frog distributions and population health across Australia, making it a powerful citizen science tool.

What does ‘paddock to plate’ involve at the summit?
This concept focuses on the food production journey. At the Royal Agricultural Society tent, students learn about the dairy industry and participate in grinding wheat to produce wholemeal flour, fostering a deeper understanding of food miles and sustainable agriculture.

How is future transport linked to sustainability?
The NRMA showcases electric and driverless vehicle technology. These innovations aim to reduce ‘Car-mageddon’—urban gridlock—while significantly lowering airborne pollution and increasing road safety by reducing human error, which accounts for approximately 97% of crashes.

What role does Indigenous culture play in environmental education at YES?
Through the Murama summit, Indigenous secondary students use a ‘kids teaching kids’ model to share cultural practices like ochre painting, woomera use, and weaving. This integrates social technologies and oral histories into the broader conversation about sustainability and connection to country.

Discussion points summarised from the Youth Eco Summit with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF

Extra thought ideas to consider

The Intersection of Art and Ecology
Consider how creative expressions like nature mandalas or storytelling can help students internalise complex ecological concepts. Using natural materials like Banksia pods and feathers to create art encourages a closer observation of biodiversity that textbooks often cannot provide.

Urban Biodiversity and the Mangrove Ecosystem
Discuss the critical role of mangroves as a nursery for fish populations and their impact on broader food chains. Licking the salt from mangrove leaves is a visceral way to learn about plant adaptations, but it also highlights how sensitive these ecosystems are to urban pollution and development.

The Shift from Ownership to Mobility
Reflect on the NRMA’s vision of car-sharing and driverless transport. How would our school environments and suburbs change if we prioritised access to efficient, clean transport over individual car ownership? This shift could reclaim vast amounts of urban space currently used for garages and parking lots.