How is does your local area define your identity?
See link for lesson plan
http://www.thehotrock.org.au/hotrockcatalogue/society--environment/year-10/the-story-of-your-place-.aspx
1. I am Western Australian
The Story of Your Place: South-west Australia
2. Australian biodiversity is in crisis,
largely due to habitat destruction
brought about by European-style
agriculture. CSIRO researchers are
calling for big changes to the way
farmers do things, including
commercially driven native tree and
animal production systems.
If consumer demand in the cities is
for native Australian foods, then that
is what farmers will grow. Imagine if
we ate quandongs, acacia seeds (see
the photo on the left), desert raisins
and kangaroo meat, used locally
produced eucalyptus oil, grew native
plants in our gardens, perhaps even
had chuditch as pets. All this would
put a commercial incentive behind the
conservation of nature. Farmers would
have a commercial reason to supply
native products. They wouldn’t have
to replace the bush with European
crops and pasture for imported
animals. This approach is called
conservation through sustainable use.
3. Australians have for a long time,
perhaps up until the 1960s, and for
some people even today, seen
themselves as a people of British
descent living on a southern continent.
Today we must know this land and
become a people unlike any other.
4. •I eat kangaroo.
•I use emu oil as a moisturizer.
•I find Sandalwood oil from our native sandalwood
tree to have the most beautiful scent in the world.
•I have white and red-tipped black Cockatoo tail
feathers near my writing desk as talismans of the
wild in Perth.
•I have learned the names of many of the native
plants and trees where I live.
•I grow native plants in my garden for honey eaters
to come and drink from.
•I know I can eat native pigface (right), especially
the fruits in summer.
•I know I can pick and grind the seeds of Acacia
cyclops, and I know the beautiful smell of this seed
roasting in my kitchen.
•When I give flowers to someone I care about, I
make sure that they are native, like for example a
glowing red and purple Banksia menziessi.
When I say that I'm from south-western
Australia it really means something to me.
5. Most of all, I know this land. I know what the soils are like under my
house. I know the ancient geological and biological history of this
place. I know the Nyoongar history of the land where I was born and
the places where I tread each day.
6. I take the time to be with the natural
world on the Swan coastal plain… To sit
quietly and listen to the morning song
of a New Holland Honey eater…. To
stand under a wandoo tree in Walyunga
National Park and watch the black eyes
of a yongka (western grey kangaroo)
through binoculars watching me back
with suspicious eyes... To see a
Western Spinebill bird feed and then
look at me as it clings to a giant, orange
flower spike from a Banksia prionates
tree...
7. To feel the padded paper rags of a
leaning paperbark trunk under my
feet as I balance above the
shadowy waters of Manning Lake...
8. I’m from this land, this sandy, spiky,
colourful and warm part of the planet.
If I don’t come to a bit of real,
natural Australia at least once a week
and pause and look around myself and
see the ancient and constantly
renewed colours and shapes of my
home, then I become a product of
globalization... just another metro-
centric city slicker.
12. Suggested further reading:
Daisy Bates, The Passing of the Aborigine (any edition).
Brad Daw, Trevor Walley and Greg Keighery. Bush Tucker Plants of the South-West. Kensington: Department of
Environment and Conservation, 2007.
Reg Morrison, Australia: The Four Billion Year Journey of a Continent (any edition).
Simon Nevill. Guide to the Wildlife of the Perth Region. Perth: Simon Nevill Publications, 2005.
Jan Rampage Tuart Dwellers DEC, Illustrations by Ellen Hickman.
Salvado, Dom Rosendo. Historical Memoirs of Australia and Particularly of the Benedictine Mission of New Norcia and of
the Habits and Customs of the Australian Natives. E. J. Stormon (edited and translated by), Nedlands: University of
Western Australia Press, 1978.
13. My Place - Western Australia
Your assessment task is to:
Produce a multimedia ‘document’ that expresses what a natural
environment in Western Australia means to you.
It must include:
Pictures taken by you of a natural place or area near to where you live or that you feel a
particular connection with.
Your written perceptions of this place. This could be prose or poetry; however you want
to record it.
Written reflection on your attitude to and what has led to your attitude to the natural
environment around you.
Your hopes for the future of the natural environment in WA.
How the natural environment of WA shapes your identity as a West Australian.
It would be good to also include:
Sound Recordings.
Interviews or reflections from people of different ages about the area you describe.
These could be other members of your family or people who live in the area. They might
be able to tell you more about what it was like in the past.
Imaginative and creative presentation.
Any history or stories that you can find out about the area you have chosen.
