Weipa school students are learning more about the environment around their school including a local creek thanks to a University of Queensland teaching package.
The teaching package, Investigating Ecosystems, has been presented to teachers at Weipa’s Western Cape College by UQ’s Dr Sandy Zicus.
It was created by Bright Minds, the $2.2 million UQ centre formed to enrich science teaching and boost the profile of science careers.
Dr Zicus spent a week in Weipa explaining the course to teachers and how to use its resources which encourages students to investigate local ecological problems.
She said students analysed the water of a nearby creek and found faecal coliforms.
This was not an immediate danger but it could indicate the presence of other contaminants.
During her stay Dr Zicus also held two days of astronomy workshops, helping to resurrect the school’s $7000 computerised telescope.
Dr Zicus has since left Bright Minds and is now the education and outreach manager at UQ’s Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR).
She plans to return to Weipa to help with student horticulture and health education for alcohol abuse, general health sanitation and high obesity rates.
For more information contact Dr Zicus (phone: 0411 869 341, 3346 9534) or email: s.zicus@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619 or email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
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