In early March, the Voyager team visited St Mary’s Primary School, Grafton, as well as Corindi, Maclean and Coutts Crossing Public schools.  These are some of the schools which last year’s fires prevented us from travelling to in 2019.  On the way home we drove through busily regenerating country. Blackened trunks sprouted fresh pipe-cleaner growth, bringing colour and life to the recently thirsty and fire-ravaged bush.

So too, the schools we worked with were bursting with colour and life: minds and hands generating creative creatures in Living Latin; foaming chemical colours merging into rainbows; counting the benefits of balanced nutrition; and delving mindfully into the power of the brain.

The new growth reminded us of nature’s ability to spring back to life after adverse climate and weather events. And our sprits naturally soared. Quote of the week from one student after she was shocked by the sound of the whoosh bottle doing its whooshing thing: “My soul jumped right out of my body and back again!” That’s life!

Kathryn Teare Ada Lambert, Adjunct Lecturer/Ecologist at UNE and UNE Discovery Voyager alumni, has written for “The Conversation” about the plants and animals flourishing after the bushfires.  Read her article here:

https://theconversation.com/these-plants-and-animals-are-now-flourishing-as-life-creeps-back-after-bushfires-130293