Home of the Yarra

Home of the Yarra Incursion

Where Nature, Environment, Sustainability and Art Meet

Home of the Yarra is an incursion day for Early Childhood / Kindergarten to Level 6 students that connects to the Yarra and it’s catchment. The headwaters of the Yarra’s catchment are the source of 90% of Melbourne’s drinking water, this forested landscape is effectively the home of the Yarra.

This incursion is participatory, with hands-on activities through nature art play and learning outcomes grounded in nature and the stories of place. Home of Yarra links the AusVELS curriculum with content from the Domains of Interpersonal Development, Arts, Humanities, Geography, History, Science, and Design Creativity & Technology. Along with touching on Cross-curriculum priorities for Sustainability, and Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. Home of the Yarra also links to the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework and its outcomes: Identity, Community, Wellbeing, Learning and Communication.

We strongly believe that experiences like this can influence and develop each child’s and group social responsibility, understanding and respect for the environment and awareness for the impact of human and nature activity on the environment. Through play and ‘hands on’ experiences with a rich supply of natural materials children will show increasing awareness of themselves as part of the world that should be a safe place to live.

The activities will also provide understanding about the local community and help to build a sense of place in relation to our local creeks and the Yarra.

Our approach is based on bioregionalism and the notion that we need to let knowledge and past and current wisdom guide our behaviour in the third millennium (Ward, 2012). This can only be achieved if the children form strong emotional and spiritual connections with their immediate environment and are offered many opportunities to express themselves through their art and ‘many languages’.

Don Butcher is an experienced naturalist and outdoor education teacher with a science degree in biodiversity and geography, Grad Dip in Outdoor & Environmental Education and Diploma of Education.

Jeminah Reidy has facilitated large-scale site-specific community arts events in the outdoors, that relate to place and the environment. Jeminah’s love for the Yarra stems from growing up in Warburton where she could hear the Yarra flowing from her window, the Yarra has inspired much of her work to date, Scenes on the Yarra is a series of seven community arts events running from the headwaters to the sea, please visit www.scenesontheyarra.com for more information. Jeminah’s background is in Set and Costume Design (Bachelor of Production Hons.) , Visual Arts and Sculpture.

These two facilitators have a working relationship with Wurrundjeri Tribe Council, and the Yarra Riverkeepers.

Don and Jeminah’s goal is to run incursions that are lots fun, educational and engaging providing a wide range of activities indoors and outdoors.

• Slide Show of the Yarra’s Catchment and Giant Trees.
• Basic Eucalyptus identification
• Waterbug Model Making
• Nature Based Cubby Houses
• Magic Walking Stick making
• Large Nature Weaving and Small Scale Weaving
• Nature Based Ephemeral Installations
• Mono Prints Using plants

“The question of rivers is not a question of rivers but of a human heart”. (Tanak Shozo, Japanese environmentalist)