Sep 012013
 

Original story at mysunshinecoast.com.au

Sunshine Coast Council Mayor Mark Jamieson will open the 2013 Kids in Action Conference – a two day event full of engaging, hands-on activities for students to learn about the importance of a sustainable environment.

Kids in Action is for students in grades 5-9 and promotes “kids teaching kids” as an effective form of learning. Three hundred and forty-five students and teachers from 28 schools across the region will participate in the event on 4-5 September.

Mayor Jamieson said the event is a great opportunity for students from different schools to interact with each other and share their own environmental research.

“Schools do amazing things in helping connect communities through their environmental programs,” Mayor Jamieson said.

“This conference aims to increase youth awareness and knowledge about our environment, resources and indigenous culture while linking young people to their community and local experts in the region.”

Kids in Action empowers people to explore and discover nature in a meaningful way which helps our communities learn to nurture and maintain their natural local areas in a positive and responsible manner.

The first day of the forum will be held at Lake Kawana Community Centre and will include guest speakers and workshop presentations by schools, whereby the students will teach each other about their environmental topic.

Adults take a back seat at this event – kids teach each other in much more interesting creative ways than the usual classroom format, with songs, dance, poems, drama, games, interactive quizzes and crafts.

The second day, proudly sponsored by Unitywater and held at Maleny Community Precinct, will give students the opportunity to further develop their skills and help our local environment with real, interactive activities including a hands-on riparian restoration activity.

Unitywater CEO George Theo said that since Unitywater signed up to become involved in Kids in Action, they’ve had kids planting seedlings at their wetlands, learning about the sewage treatment process and doing water testing of streams.

“As Unitywater works to actively protect the environment, being involved in this program gives us the chance to help educate the environmental custodians of the future,” Mr Theo said.

“Most importantly, the kids learn they can make a real difference on environment issues, despite the magnitude of challenges facing their environment.”

The Sunshine Coast Kids In Action Conference is part of the 2013 Target Kids Teaching Kids Week in which more than 10,000 students across Australia will focus their knowledge and passion for the environment through comedy, songs, quizzes, rap, plays and experiments around the environment issues of concern to them.

The event is funded by the Sunshine Coast Environment Levy and supported by Unitywater.

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