Koala Smart brings conservation to the classroom

School kids share their ideas about how to save koalas

Saving our Species is supporting a new education program to engage school kids in the question of how to save koalas.

The Tacking Point Lions Club in Port Macquarie has launched Koala Smart. The program aims to inspire, motivate and educate primary and secondary school children and the local community to design and implement projects that can help koalas.

Students use an inquiry and project-based learning approach to answer the question “What would you do to save the koala?” The local community then explores how to implement the best ideas.

Twenty-five schools from the Port Macquarie region entered the program in 2019. Students proposed a wide variety of koala-saving projects, from backyard ladders to help koalas escape domestic dogs to a wildlife rescue app to alert local wildlife rehabilitators about injured koalas needing urgent care.

Koala Smart hosted a gala event in Port Macquarie in October to showcase all of the schools’ ideas. Almost 300 people attended the Koala Smart Schools Display launch in Port Macquarie in October. The Tacking Point Lions Club will now work with schools to identify projects for implementation in 2020.

Saving our Species is working with the Lions Club to develop the program and expand it across the state in 2020. Funding through the NSW Koala Strategy will help align the program with the NSW school curriculum, produce guidelines for other Lions Clubs to deliver the program in their region, and develop new and engaging content for the program.

Partners in the project include the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, the Hastings-Macleay Koala Recovery Partnership and Saving our Species.

Visit the Koala Smart website to sign up for the 2020 Koala Smart Program.