A joint project between The Rotary Clubs of Sunraysia (D9520) and The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre.
Please be advised that the Health of the River System Youth Forum will not be offered in 2012. Rotary Mildura and The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre need to review the forum. The two organisations will consider reinventing their partnership with regard to secondary school engagement in 2013.
For any enquiries about this decision you can contact Michelle Kavanagh at The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre in Mildura via email m.kavanagh@latrobe.edu.au
The annual Rotary Murray-Darling Health of the River System Youth Forum was held in 2011 bringing it into its thirteenth year. The forum brought together year 9 and 10 students from Rotary district 9520 which stretches from Robinvale to Victor Harbour, with the intention of learning about the health of our rivers and the ways that river health impacts our lives. The four day event was held at the picturesque Lake Cullulleraine, 50km west of Mildura, Victoria.
The forum offered an exciting opportunity for interested students and future leaders to become involved in a long-weekend of activities designed to raise their awareness of the needs of, and ways of maintaining, an ecologically sound river system. The forum examined the importance of the river environment to our communities as well as focusing on the role that young people can play in educating the community and changing attitudes to water.
Students participated in a range of water based activities that illustrate both the costs and benefits of water resource management. From the environmental side, the students sampled fish, bugs, aquatic plants and water quality and, in the process, learned about their biology and the impacts of our use of the resource. The students also visited Lindemans Winery and Lock 9 and learnt about indigenous cultural heritage on the Murray floodplain and participated in a role play game where the demands of the environment have to be traded off against economic and social issues. The camp wasn't all work however, as there are opportunities for physical activities including canoeing, swimming and yachting on the lake.
The camp culminated with the students giving a presentation on what river health means to them. Organisers and the participants have been very impressed with the high standard of the presentations which demonstrated a great deal of imagination and understanding of the issues. Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the presentations has been the desire of the students to find solutions to the many problems that they had learned about over a busy weekend.
Comments from students attending in previous years:
- “I learnt that little things do make a difference”
- “I had an awesome time, I learnt heaps of new things and made lots of new friends”
- “It has given me a larger outlook on how much our lives depend on the Murray river”
- “I especially liked meeting other people from around SA, NSW and Vic”
View 2011 Rotary Health of the River Forum Brochure here.
Health of River Forum Brochure 2011 (501 KB)
