OUR PLACE Western Sydney

Stage 1: Sustainability Educators

Place story map: Chris Tobin, Darug Sustainability Educator, 2012.

1

OUR PLACE, WESTERN SYDNEY

STAGE 1: COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL and SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATORS

PROJECT REPORT March 2013

Margaret Somerville Lin Brown Karin Mackay

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...... iv LIST OF FIGURES ...... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... vi

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 What is „Our Place, Western Sydney‟? ...... 1

BACKGROUND ...... 1 Social/Cultural ...... 2 Economic ...... 2 Environmental ...... 2 Educational ...... 3

THE PROJECT ...... 4 Aims ...... 4 Scope of the project ...... 4 Key questions ...... 4 Methodology ...... 4 Methods ...... 5 Survey/invitation ...... 5

EDUCATORS‟ PLACE MAPS AND STORIES ...... 8 Outer Western Sydney Focus Group ...... 8 Representative Place Story Maps ...... 10 Mid Western Sydney Focus Group ...... 14 Representative Place Story Maps ...... 15 Inner Western Sydney Region ...... 20 Representative Place Story Maps ...... 22

CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ...... 26 Educators‟ statements about the challenges of their work ...... 28

ENABLERS OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ...... 30 Strategies to engage the disengaged ...... 32

EDUCTORS‟ LEARNING AND SUPPORT NEEDS ...... 35 Professional learning needs ...... 35 Educators‟ support needs ...... 37 Priority needs ...... 38

LIST OF APPENDICES ...... 39 Appendix 1: List of Acronyms ...... 40 Appendix 2: Invitation Email ...... 41 Appendix 3: Story Maps and Pedagogical Practices: The Educators‟ Discussions ...... 42 Appendix 4: Indepth Analysis of Individual Story Maps ...... 56

iii LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Participants per Region ...... 5 Table 2: Outline of Workshop Content ...... 7 Table 3: Outer Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary ...... 9 Table 4: Mid Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary ...... 15 Table 5: Inner Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary ...... 20 Table 6: Challenges/Barriers to Community Engagement ...... 27 Table 7: Strategies to Enable Community Engagement ...... 31 Table 8: Educator Professional Learning Needs ...... 36 Table 9: Educator Support Needs for Community Engagement ...... 37

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: „Our Place, Western Sydney‟: Relevant Local Government Areas ...... 1

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As lead author of this report I would like to begin by acknowledging that this research was conducted on Darug Lands, to pay my respects to elders past and present, and to acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal people who have participated in this project. I would like to acknowledge the twenty five community sustainability educators who participated in this research and shared so generously of their time, commitment and passion. If the wellbeing of the planet was in their hands the world would be a better place. I would like to acknowledge the very close working collaboration and support from Sue Burton, Karen Paroissien and Amy Nancarrow of the Office of Environment and Heritage and Jen Dollin of the UN Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development, Greater Western Sydney. Without this three way partnership the project would not have been possible. Finally I would like to acknowledge the wonderful work of research assistants Karin Mackay and Lin Brown. Karin has been embedded in community arts and sustainability education for many years and had just the right approach for engaging community educators in the drawing task that yielded such rich insights for us all. Lin applied her expertise in making sense of the proliferation of lists and quotes to manageable and accessible tables so that the reader of this report can gain access to the complex and multiple data the educators generated.

We hope that readers will find this report informative and engaging and that it will make a difference.

Margaret Somerville Professor of Education Director, Centre for Educational Research University of Western Sydney

v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction - What is Our Place, Western Sydney? „Our Place, Western Sydney‟ is a collaborative project between the Centre for Educational Research, University of Western Sydney, the UN Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainability Development, Greater Western Sydney, and the Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW. The project was designed to find out how community sustainability educators and community members can be assisted to achieve environmental and sustainability outcomes in the region. It was organised in two stages. Stage 1: Community educators aimed to investigate how community sustainability educators in the Western Sydney region are engaging with their communities and how they can support their communities to get more involved in looking after their local places. Stage 2 aimed to find out what local places are important to communities in western Sydney and how to support community members to look after their local places.

Background „Our Place, Western Sydney‟ is developed in the context of the transition from a state-based (governance) model to a region-based (place) model for the Office of Environment and Heritage. For this purpose the western Sydney region is defined as comprising 8 local government areas:- The Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury, Penrith, Blacktown, The Hills, Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta.

Figure 1: „Our Place, Western Sydney‟: Relevant Local Government Areas

vi The Western Sydney region has a population of 1.2 million people and is one of the fastest growing urban populations in Australia. The majority of Australia‟s new immigrants (60%) settle in GWS. 35% of the total population of Greater Western Sydney were born overseas, having migrated from over 170 countries, often as refugees, and speaking in excess of one hundred languages. The region is home to the Indigenous Darug, Tharawal and Gandarra peoples, and has the largest single Aboriginal community in the country with Aboriginal people who have relocated from all over Australia. The region features rural and agricultural lands, and natural bushland, including the remnants of the critically endangered native Cumberland Plain Bushland and World Heritage-listed areas of the Blue Mountains. The Hawkesbury-Nepean River system is Sydney‟s primary water source, the backbone of the region‟s agricultural and fishing industries, and a major recreational attraction. The demand for land development is threatening natural bushlands and the local food industry. There is an extensive body of Indigenous knowledge about the river and its local environments that is a crucial resource for sustainability education. Despite the fact that western Sydney‟s economy is the third largest in Australia behind the Sydney CBD and Melbourne, the region has higher than average unemployment and lower than average salary levels. More than half of the local government areas are rated as having the highest levels of disadvantage on the SEIFA index of socio-economic disadvantage. Educational outcomes are marked by the low socio-economic status of many communities in the region. The overall high school retention rate for years 7 to 12 is the lowest in the Sydney metropolitan area and in 2009 twice as many people in GWS aged 15 or older had not attended school compared to the rest of Sydney and NSW. The University of Western Sydney is the only university located in Western Sydney and it offers a range of courses and research programs to some 36,000 students. The area is also supported by seven colleges that form the Western Sydney Institute of Technical and Further Education (WSI TAFE). These two institutions are the major providers of further education in the area. Based on discussions with regional leaders and contributions from individuals on the NSW 2021 „Have your Say‟ website, the NSW Government has identified the following priorities for the Western Sydney region:

 Grow the economy of Western Sydney  Improve access to jobs and facilitate employment growth, particularly for young people  Improve strategic planning to protect valuable agricultural land  Provide greater access to affordable housing options  Reduce travel times  Deliver appropriate services to disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our community  Improve local natural environmental assets and the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.

Within these broad priority areas a number of priority actions have been identified relating to „Local Environment and Communities‟:

vii  Manage river health  Limit the impacts of urban development on the environment  Protect wildlife  Increase green skills education and training opportunities  Improve strategic planning to protect valuable agricultural land

Community-based sustainability educators are key to achieving these sustainability outcomes in western Sydney but we know little about their work or how to support them.

THE PROJECT Our Place, Western Sydney Stage 1 aims to identify how to community-based environmental and sustainability educators in the Western Sydney region are engaging with their communities and how they can support communities to become more involved in looking after their local environments.

Key questions What is your role in sustainability education and who is the community you work with? What have you found helps to engage people in your community/ies to look after their local places? What are some of the challenges in engaging people in your community? What are your professional learning needs and what support do you need to facilitate communities to look after their local places?

Methodology and methods The project was framed within the concept of Place, as aligned with the new directions of the Office of Environment and Heritage and the structure of RCE, Greater Western Sydney. We used the map of the region to group the eight local government areas into three clusters according to distance from the centre of Sydney and apparent population density. This resulted in an Outer Western Sydney cluster (Hawkesbury-Nepean and Blue Mountains); a Mid Western Sydney cluster (Penrith, Blacktown and the Hills); and an Inner Western Sydney cluster (Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta). Educators were invited to attend a Focus Group in their cluster and were subsequently linked to the Community Forum (Stage 2) held in the same cluster. In this way the educators‟ Focus Group and Community Forum workshop discussions were focussed on similar issues connected to the characteristics of these local places.

The focus groups aimed to explore the nature and location of community sustainability educators‟ work; the enablers and barriers to them engaging with their communities; and their professional learning and support needs. Within the focus groups the research used a different method for each of these aims. The educators were first asked to individually map their work and their communities on A3 paper and to verbally introduce themselves using their place story map. They then took part in a group discussion about the enablers and barriers to engaging their communities, and finally they listed their learning and support needs in pairs. The resulting data was analysed according to the storylines of place and identity in their place

viii story maps; the categories and themes that emerged in the group discussion of enablers and barriers; and the nature and frequency of their learning and support needs.

THE OUTCOMES

Educators place maps and stories The analysis of the educator‟s 25 place story maps reveals how important it is to understand the nature of sustainability educators‟ community engagement work. Each educator‟s unique place story was analysed according to the two main storylines that emerged from this data, the story of their identity and their pedagogies. Unlike educators in schools, their identities, and the nature and places of their work, are diverse and complex. They tended to fall into similar groups according to the place-based clusters of Outer, Mid and Inner West, and therefore individual profiles are presented of typical and atypical place story maps for each cluster. Educators in the Outer cluster were well networked and focussed on experiential learning, protection of natural eco-systems and food production networks. Educators from the Mid West cluster were more fragmented, their focus was on engaging the disengaged and the challenges of peri-urban development including loss of community cohesion and rural lands. The Inner West educators on the other hand found many commonalities in issues of urban density and urban low SES community needs, and the needs of high migrant and multicultural communities.

The atypical place story maps reveal the importance of understanding and respecting the diversity that exists within the field if we are to understand the work of community sustainability educators. The place story map of a Darug educator was selected as one of two Aboriginal participants, both in the Outer West group. His map shows concentric circles of country with the outer circle representing the ancestors, the middle circle representing the current generation and the inner circle representing the future generations. His map is uniquely different to all of the rest. Eight brightly coloured circles within the outer circle represent other organisations working for environmental sustainability, all contained within the Aboriginal notion of Country.

The place story map of a volunteer educator was chosen as atypical in the Mid West group. This artist-educator‟s map revealed a strong sense of personal meaning through her central identity as educator, which connected diverse places and communities of engagement. The place story map of a Moslem childcare centre owner/director was analysed as the atypical map from the Inner West, although in some senses it could be said to be typical as half the focus group were new migrants. This learning map is distinctive in it representation of three childcare centres each under an arc of brightly coloured rainbows with sun, rain, trees, and multiple community connections in all directions. The central image is a heart shaped of home and family. The profiles and place story maps of these educators are represented fully in the report and appendices.

ix Challenges and barriers A total of 50 challenges and barriers to engaging communities were recorded across the three focus groups. These were divided into four meta-level categories to better understand their nature: (1) engaging different sections of the community; (2) collaborating with other educators; (3) designing successful programs/workshops and (4) bureaucratic and work conditions. Under (1) educators specified attitudes within particular community groups, separation of communities from the environment and socio-economic factors as barriers. In category (2) educators identified difficulties of engaging with teachers and schools, and differences in educators own sustainability „journey‟. In relation to (3), designing successful programs, credibility, information overload, problematic terms (climate change) and the general difficulty of language and terminology were discussed. Bureaucratic concerns (4) included over regulation for educators and community members, and lack of time and resources for filling out complex grant applications. Quotes are provided to illustrate each of these themes. Many of these challenges and barriers appear again in „Enabling factors‟ in relation to potential resolutions.

Enablers of community engagement Educators recorded a total of 76 responses when discussing successful strategies for engaging community members in sustainability activities. These were categorised into the meta-level categories of HOW, WHO, WHAT and WHERE to engage the community. Under HOW, educators discussed successful workshop and program design; strategies for motivating and engaging their communities; tailoring the approach to specific audiences in terms of language, age and socio-economic factors; and strategies for informing the community; as key enabling factors. Under WHO educators described the importance of getting to know their communities and engaging networks as significant. Under WHAT they covered issues of content appeal; and in relation to WHERE, they discussed the need to be visible in the community. Again, each of these strategies is illustrated with key quotes from the data in the full report.

Educator learning and support needs The educators proposed a total of 136 learning and support needs that are analysed according to „Professional Learning Needs‟ and „Support Needs‟. The topics proposed by the educators in relation to their ongoing professional learning in order of the frequency were: 1) establishing and maintaining formal and informal networks; 2) updating their knowledge and skills in the areas of grant writing, information technology and pedagogies of engagement; 3) participating in formal learning opportunities and 4) learning local knowledge and resource availability. In terms of support required they listed: Additional staff (a wide range of support staff named); information resources; money/funding; organisational support; time; support from media for advertising; and ongoing professional development. The final focus group was asked to prioritise their professional learning needs and came up with the following list that is typical across the three groups if we interpret „language education‟ in the broad sense of communication education.

x  More financial resourcing - insufficient funding, money  Needing more volunteers  Language education, support to get the message across to non-English speakers  Mobilising partnerships and connections with other organisations and  Having time to access information about sustainability education programs, resources, case studies already available through the internet (e.g. Sustainability Reading Hub)

This priority list from the educators themselves confirms findings from other research about the community sustainability education sector (Somerville & Green, 2013). While community sustainability initiatives are emerging worldwide as a source of innovative responses to urgent planetary problems, the sector is the most poorly resourced and the least understood. The location of highly innovative teaching and learning, community sustainability education is an essential source of innovation for the formal education sector. It is the most efficient and cost effective form of sustainability engagement in terms of the potential of local partnerships, local networks, and the ability to mobilise committed volunteers. The project has identified the unique place-based nature of sustainability educators‟ work and the importance of building connections across the sector to leverage momentum for transformational change. Educators identified the proliferation of information on the web but welcomed the opportunity for authentic face to face connections and information sharing as essential to their own professional development. These research findings are limited to the perspectives of the 25 educators who participated in the focus groups in the western Sydney region. The project is ongoing, however, in the sense that the sustainability educators are connected to community members through the community forums conducted in Stage 2 of the project. It is also ongoing in the sense that the Our Place project will be extended to other regions in NSW. The findings about the work of these community sustainability educators in each different region will add cumulative weight to our understanding of their work in engaging their communities to look after their local places.

RECOMMENDATIONS

 Disseminate the findings of this research  Elicit feedback about the research and its findings from organisations and educators within the region, and more broadly through face to face and online forums.  Continue to build on this knowledge through cumulatively considering the outcomes of the research in other regions.  Develop professional learning modules through the UWS Education Knowledge Network (EKN) that can be accredited into a Master of Education.  Establish and maintain regular network meetings across the region through the Education for Sustainability strand of the UN RCE Greater Western Sydney.  Provide local and regional professional learning to enhance access to available resources.

xi Introduction

INTRODUCTION

What is ‘Our Place, Western Sydney’?

„Our Place, Western Sydney‟ is a collaborative project between the Office of Environment and Heritage, the Centre for Educational Research, University of Western Sydney, and the United Nations Regional Centre for Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development, Greater Western Sydney (RCE, GWS). The project is organised in two stages, Stage 1: Community educators and Stage 2: Community members. Stage 1 of the project aims to identify how community-based environmental and sustainability educators in the Western Sydney region are engaging with their communities and how they can support their communities to get more involved in looking after their local environments. Stage 2 aims to find out what local places are important to community members and how to support them to look after their local places. Community educators participating in Stage 1 are connected with community members participating in Stage 2 through the research process.

BACKGROUND

„Our Place, Western Sydney‟ is developed in the context of the transition from a state-based (governance) model to a region-based (place) model for the Office of Environment and Heritage. For this purpose the western Sydney region is defined as comprising 8 local government areas:- The Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury, Penrith, Blacktown, The Hills, Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta.

Figure 1: „Our Place, Western Sydney‟: Relevant Local Government Areas

1 Introduction

The Western Sydney region has a population of 1.2 million people and is one of the fastest growing urban populations in Australia. While there are marked local differences across the region, the following summarises the broad cultural, environmental, economic and educational characteristics identified by the UN RCE Greater Western Sydney and the Centre for Educational Research.

Social/Cultural

The population of the Region is culturally diverse as the majority of Australia‟s new immigrants (60%) settle in GWS. 35% of the total population of Greater Western Sydney were born overseas, having migrated from over 170 countries, and speaking in excess of one hundred languages. Over the past decade 50% of the total immigration came from Iraq and Sudan, often as refugees escaping the trauma of war torn countries. In addition to the high cultural diversity resulting from incoming migration, GWS is home to the Indigenous Darug, Tharawal and Gandarra peoples, and has the largest single Aboriginal community in the country with Aboriginal people who have relocated from all over Australia.

Economic

Despite the fact that GWS‟s economy is the third largest in Australia behind the Sydney CBD and Melbourne, the region has higher than average unemployment and lower than average salary levels. GWS also has high levels of mortgage and rental stress. Seven of the ten local government areas rated as having the highest levels of disadvantage on the SEIFA index, are in the GWS region; that is half of the total number of local government areas rated as having high levels of disadvantage. The SEIFA index is derived from such signifiers of disadvantage such as low income, low educational attainment, high unemployment, and jobs in relatively unskilled occupations.

Environmental

The region is subject to the impacts of human induced climate change and the sustainability imperatives of transitioning to a low carbon economy, developing sustainable housing and transport, ensuring agricultural sustainability and food security and conserving biodiversity and river health. The region features rural and agricultural lands, and natural bushland, including the remnants of the critically endangered native Cumberland Plain Bushland and World Heritage-listed areas of the Blue Mountains. In particular, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system is Sydney‟s primary water source, the backbone of the region‟s agricultural and fishing industries and a major recreational attraction. The demand for land development is threatening not only the natural bushland but also the local food industry. There is an extensive body of Indigenous knowledge about the river and its local environments that is a crucial resource for sustainability education.

2 Introduction

Educational

Educational outcomes are marked by the low socio-economic status of many communities in the region. The overall high school retention rate for years 7 to 12 is the lowest in the Sydney metropolitan area (69.5% compared to 95.2% in Northern Sydney). In 2009 twice as many people in GWS aged 15 or older had not attended school compared to the rest of Sydney and NSW. The high cultural diversity of the region, especially waves of incoming migration produces pressure on early childhood, schools and adult education provision in terms of language and basic social integration skills. The challenges facing students with refugee backgrounds are especially acute. UWS is the only university located in Western Sydney and it offers a range of courses and research programs to some 36,000 students. The area is also supported by seven colleges that form the Western Sydney Institute of Technical and Further Education (WSI TAFE). These two institutions are the major providers of further education in the area.

Based on discussions with regional leaders and contributions from individuals on the NSW 2021 „Have your Say‟ website, the NSW Government has identified the following priorities for the Western Sydney region:  Grow the economy of Western Sydney  Improve access to jobs and facilitate employment growth, particularly for young people  Improve strategic planning to protect valuable agricultural land  Provide greater access to affordable housing options  Reduce travel times  Deliver appropriate services to disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our community  Improve local natural environmental assets and the health of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.

Within these broad priority areas a number of priority actions have been identified relating to „Local Environment and Communities‟:  Manage river health  Limit the impacts of urban development on the environment  Protect wildlife  Increase green skills education and training opportunities  Improve strategic planning to protect valuable agricultural land

The involvement of the community is crucial in achieving these goals and the work of community based environmental and sustainability educators is the means by which communities can be supported. This collaborative project between the Centre for Educational Research, the UN Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainability Development and the Office of Environment and Heritage is designed to find out how community educators and community members can be assisted to achieve these environmental and sustainability outcomes.

3 The Project

THE PROJECT

Our Place, Western Sydney Stage 1 aims to identify how to community-based environmental and sustainability educators in the Western Sydney region are engaging with their communities and how they can support communities to become more involved in looking after their local environments.

Aims  To connect and communicate with educators from different sectors in the region to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and useful support needs in their roles  To identify current approaches, difficulties and gaps in engaging a broad cross-section of the local communities including CALD communities, new arrivals, businesses, Aboriginal communities and schools  To identify locally appropriate opportunities to build networks, skills and capacity of educators  To create a local plan or framework for supporting educators to build networks and skills and provide resources for engaging their communities in looking after their local environments.

Scope of the project

The definition of „educators‟ is broad. It refers to those in the region whose role includes environmental or sustainability education and engagement. This broad range of „educators‟ could include sustainability officers from councils or businesses, education officers from CMAs, rangers or guides, and volunteers from community organisations.

Key questions

What is your role in sustainability education and who is the community you work with? What have you found helps to engage people in your community/ies to look after their local places? What are some of the challenges in engaging people in your community? What are your professional learning needs and what support do you need to facilitate communities to look after their local places?

Methodology

The project was framed within the concept of Place, as aligned with the new directions of the Office of Environment and Heritage and the structure of RCE, Greater Western Sydney. Using Place as a conceptual framework offers a common language across different knowledge systems (such as Indigenous and western knowledge frameworks). It can provide a link between people‟s local places and global phenomena such as climate change by focussing on impacts in specific local places such as fire, flood and drought. People‟s relationship to Place is a way to engage community members on an emotional and spiritual

4 The Project level as well as a more abstract governance or bureaucratic level. Place as a conceptual framework has been central in this project.

In asking the question „How can environmental and sustainability educators engage community members in looking after their local places?‟ it became clear that we needed to divide the region into clusters of local government areas with similar sustainability challenges. We used the map (see p.2) to group the eight local government areas into three clusters according to distance from the centre of Sydney and apparent population density. This resulted in an Outer Western Sydney cluster (Hawkesbury-Nepean and Blue Mountains); a Mid Western Sydney cluster (Penrith, Blacktown and the Hills); and an Inner Western Sydney cluster (Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta). Educators were invited to attend a Focus Group in their cluster and were subsequently linked to the Community Forum held in the same cluster. In this way the educators‟ Focus Group and Community Forum workshop discussions were focussed on similar issues connected to the characteristics of these local places.

Methods

Survey/invitation The Office of Environment and Heritage distributed an invitation to environmental and sustainability educators across the western Sydney region using established email networks (see Appendix 1). Educators were asked to respond with an expression of interest stating their contact details, the local government area in which their work was located and a paragraph explaining their community engagement roles and practices. Twenty-three educators responded online. In order to balance the numbers of participants across the three regions, additional community educators were contacted through personal networks, resulting in the recruitment of an additional seven participants, bringing the total expressions of interest to thirty.

Table 1 below provides an overview of the expressions of interest by educators and actual attendance at the Focus Group.

Table 1: Participants per Region LGA Expressions Phone Final numbers of interest confirmation attending received to attend Outer 14 11 8 Mid 15 10 8 Inner 10 8 9

All three Focus Groups were conducted within the same week to ensure cohesiveness and consistency in the research design. Time-wise, each was scheduled to enable maximum participation by educators employed full-time.

Each Focus Group was planned as a three-hour workshop/discussion including:

5 The Project

 an introductory story mapping activity  a recorded whole group discussion specifically generating data of the enablers and barriers to their work and  a paired activity where participants compiled a list of their professional learning and support needs.

Story map making activity Participants were provided with a range of high quality drawing implements including pastels, chalks, textas, and coloured pencils and an A3 sheet of paper in order for them to create their story map. They were asked to create a visual representation of where they worked and which community/ies they worked with. Educators spent 10-15 minutes on their story maps. On completion they were asked to speak to their place map and explain their representations to the others present. Each educator spoke approximately 5 minutes. The storytelling was recorded by passing the digital recorder from person to person as a „message stick‟.

Focus group discussion – enablers and barriers to community engagement During the second phase of the Focus Group, the educators were asked to reflect on their own daily practice, to share their successes but highlight the challenges and barriers they face with their efforts to engage community members in local sustainability activities. This discussion section was scheduled to take 30-45 minutes, recorded and transcribed verbatim utilising the services of a professional transcription service.

Paired activity – Professional learning and support needs The third element to the Focus Group divided the educators into pairs to discuss and list their professional learning needs and to nominate what support they needed to enhance their community engagement work.

An overview for participants The Focus Group workshop format, content and the guiding questions for the session were provided for each participant prior to commencement (Table 2).

6 The Project

Table 2: Outline of Workshop Content Part A Your Story The location of your work What work you do? Who are the community/ies that you work with? Include any special interest individuals or communities you work with. Part B Discussion What have you found helps to engage people in your community? What are some of the challenges to engaging people in your community? Part C List of Needs What are your professional learning needs? What help do you need to engage your communities? How can we support you in this? Guiding Questions: What is your role in sustainability education and who is the community you work with? What have you found helps to engage people in your community/ies? What are some of the challenges in engaging people in your community? What are your professional learning needs and what supports do you need to facilitate communities to look after their local places?

7 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries EDUCATORS’ PLACE MAPS AND STORIES

The following data generated through the educators‟ place maps and stories is presented by Region: Outer Western Sydney Region, Mid Western Sydney Region and the Inner Western Sydney Region. Within each of these Regions data are presented in three sub-sections. Firstly, the Regional Overview is discussed, followed by a table summarising identity and pedagogical information expressed by the educators in their stories and concludes with representative story map/s accompanied by a descriptive analysis.

The full data set for all educators‟ story maps is presented in Appendix 2: Story Maps and Pedagogical Practices: The Educators‟ Discussions and Appendix 3: Indepth Analysis of Individual Story Maps.

Outer Western Sydney Focus Group

Regional Overview The first focus group was held at the Hawkesbury campus of the University of Western Sydney and included eight educators from the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury-Nepean local government areas. Two of the educators identified as Indigenous. The overall data gathered from this focus group reflected the outer western Sydney cluster with large areas of wilderness and rural lands and low population density. Participants were well networked within their specific locations with a noticeable division between the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury-Nepean educators. The Blue Mountains participants were more focussed on community sustainability activities, while the Hawkesbury-Nepean interests encompassed such things as organic food production, and harvesting and marketing. Both groups shared similar preferences for experiential learning in outdoor places and the protection of local wilderness sites.

The Educators Table 3 provides a summary of the Outer Western Sydney educators.

8 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries

Table 3: Outer Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary

ID Place Pedagogies Communities O-1-1 Mt Tomah; Place Based – Community comes EarthCare; Hawkesbury, BMtns occasionally to Botanical Gardens; workshops, communities Lithgow (power into tours Eco-trail treasure hunt. station); Aboriginal Community- community. Darug women. O-1-2 Aboriginal Presenting Aboriginal idea of Visits by individuals community Centre Echo Country as including all living members, Local councils, Special Point things. 15min message to tourist Interest Groups (Migrants and Arts) visitors. National Parks and Wildlife State Officers, Educational Institutions, UWS, Schools, Environmental groups, Bushcare, Aboriginal Organisation O-2-1 Rural farms in Networking, farmers‟ markets. Rural communities; residents; Hawkesbury Schools, Agric Ref Group HEN, area, farmers‟ OHN. UWS. markets. O-2-2 UWS site Earthcare Centre as a model of UWS students; Botanical Gardens; rented by community participation; Hawkesbury Rainforest Network, Earthcare, networking with other HH, RCE, PDR, ATA. „A node on a Henry organizations through partnerships. network‟. Doubleday Seed Savers & Alternative Tech. O-2-3 Hawkesbury Bringing groups together; Redbank, Rivo Kija, BMtn, Uni Vet area; developing packages of Sci, CSIRO, Schools, Illawarra, Creek regen. engagement and trialling these. TAFE CLM, Plant Society, ACF- Need more than plant identification AABR. and bush regen. O-3-1 Agricultural School (Terra Sancta–Sacred TAFE education in Earth), students learn they are on school Sacred Earth, Permaculture principles, garden chickens. O-4-1 Hawkesbury Hands on regen with volunteers. Bushcare groups; Hawkesbury bushlands – community nursery, volunteers, activities along retirees, scouts, Aboriginal group. river system. O-4-2 Aboriginal Project for pathways, ground work, Richmond TAFE – Cert 3 youth in bush regenertaion, culture, native Horticulture. secondary plants. school

ID Codes: The ID Code for participants has three components as follows: Letter indicates region: O = Outer; M = Mid; I = Inner; First Number indicates occupation: 1 –Community Education Officer-Sustainability Education Officer; 2 –Centre Coordinator; 3 –Secondary Teacher; 4 –Environmental Officers; 5 –Project Manager; 6 –Freelance Consultants; 7 –Early Childhood Centre Staff ; Second Number indicates participants‟ consecutive number.

9 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Representative Place Story Maps

1. Eric, Coordinator of Earthcare Centre

…we‟re not trying to be all things to all people, but provide a place where people can have experiential learning…but there‟s links too…we network…I see us as a node on a network.

Place, identity and community Earthcare is its own little culture in that it‟s a small group, it‟s a tribal nature, it‟s Henry Doubleday‟s Research and the Alternative Technology Association so it‟s two organisations come together on the site and rent the land off the uni. So we connect university, UWS is there, I think we offer a lot of benefit to UWS, mainly students but also to the staff and people who are in there – there‟s actually 10 students over there working on gardens just, it‟s just taken off at the moment. The other context we work in too of course, is in the Hawkesbury area because we are local sort of thing and we‟re getting a reputation there too and a lot of people know the centre and we‟re dealing with technological ATA issues, like solar power and things too. But the organic growing side of things, we‟ve got a bit of bushland now too and permaculture, so it‟s a bit of everything, and then we attract people from all over, the Hawkesbury River is here of course too, sense of place, geographic, it‟s a major geographic icon of the area I think.

Pedagogical practices … the globe is here too of course, and we relate to that too, the RCE. A lot of things we identify with are global problems anyway, over population and waste and pollution and decreasing agriculture and decreasing natural environment and all that sort of stuff too so we obviously have that in the back of our mind. And also there‟s other direct links too like with the Botanic Gardens in terms of plant knowledge. Within here there‟s a closer connection with the Hawkesbury Rainforest Network which of course I‟m involved with as well too, which focuses on people identifying their own plants in their area. The Centre itself is a bit of a model, I actually started the Earthcare Centre with a group of likeminded people. We‟re not trying to be all things to all people, but provide a place where people can have experiential learning. I see ourselves as part of a node on a network.

Place map The central image is the Earthcare centre building with stick people encircled by greenery and bush and the initials ATA (Alternative Technology Centre) and HD (Henry Doubleday) for key partners. Wavy concentric circles, initials, and doubled ended arrows represent multiple two way connections with RCE (United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development), HH (Hawkesbury Harvest), HEN (Hawkesbury Environment Network), UWS (University of Western Sydney). In the top left corner a large black smudge with symbolic buildings is labelled „western Sydney‟ with no connection to the central image or any other part of the story map. A bright blue river enters from the side indicating it flows in from elsewhere and shortly below forks into two with one labelled the Hawkesbury flowing

10 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries close by the central Earthcare image and out the bottom of the A3 sheet. A small globe of the world is connected by double ended black arrows to the central image but it is dwarfed by vivid red angular on each side. Five of these bright red angular scribbles surround the Earthcare central image and Eric describes them as representing „chaos‟. It is interesting that these red symbols of chaos contain the most vibrant energy of the story map and it is likely that the red symbolises danger. They are not connected to the black smudge of western Sydney so they possibly also represent free floating energy that can potentially be drawn on in relation to the Earthcare Centre.

11 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries 2. Chris, Aboriginal Education Officer, Echo Point Tourist Centre

I mean social justice and the environmental outcomes to me are the same. We work for those. We want a healthy community, sustainable one. I get a chance to share with people that we have a heritage of good custodianship of the country.

Place, identity and community The large circle represents country and the smaller circles represent the various groups within country. And so I‟ve worked for country, I get a chance to deliver, have some input into various groups that are all working for the same good cause - there‟s Bush Care, we‟ve got an Aboriginal Organisation, National Parks, visitors to the place, special interest groups, environment groups, local councils, State Government groups, education, all these, they‟re all within country and they overlap at different times. What I get the chance to do sometimes is just connect people, and it‟s all - social justice and the environmental outcomes to me are the same, we work for those. We want a healthy community, sustainable one, I get a chance to share with people that we have a heritage of good custodianship of country, and it‟s not the short term aims that we often have to abide by these days. And so the outer circle actually is the ancestors, the people gone before us, this is us here [middle circle] and then the ones that come up behind us are the children. And these are all part of our identity and they have to be taken into consideration and we do make decisions about country and that sort of thing.

Pedagogical practices I get lots of opportunities to share that with people and my real theme at the moment is that human beings can fit beautifully on this planet. Aboriginal ancestors – we‟re lucky in Australia we‟ve got Aboriginal history that has shown us that human beings can live on the planet without trashing the place. One of the school teachers a few years ago alerted me to the fact that whereas my generation grew up in fear we‟re going to blow each other up with a bomb, young people these days often think the environment‟s going to kill us, and how tragic is that? So that‟s why the stuff that we do is got to be done with hope and purpose. I work at the Aboriginal Centre at Echo Point. I get 15 minutes to cram in a real quick message, so it‟s challenging but you do, even in that 10 minutes if you just present things like people haven‟t seen it before, you see little lights go on. I say, that we human beings can live in harmony with the environment. I love to overturn the idea that it was a primitive culture. They also need to know that human beings lived beautifully with the other creatures, we have to work within their rhythms and that sort of thing. It‟s a message of hope, I explain that by working at the uni here actually, I learnt that the river‟s far cleaner than it‟s been for 30 years, which is exciting, but it‟s still not safe to swim in anymore.

Central image, icons and connections Chris is a Darug man from the Western Sydney area. His story map is different from all of the others. It consists of three concentric circles outlined in thick yellow/gold. The outer circle is labelled „Country‟ in three places. There is nothing outside Country in this story map. The two

12 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries inner circles are unlabelled but we know from Chris‟s verbal story that the outer circle represents the ancestors (who are country), the middle circle represents the present generation, and the inner circle represents future generations. Drawn over these three large central circles are eight smaller concentric circles in red, pink, blue and green as if they are orbiting within the larger circle. Each is composed of three concentric circles labelled with the names of all of the organisations who work to care for country:- local councils; special interest groups; visitors; National Parks and Wildlife; State Offices, educational institutions, schools, UWS etc; Environmental groups; Bushcare and Aboriginal organisations. While the whole is embraced within country and the ancestors, the image has a mobile dynamic quality about it akin to the symbolic images of the solar system with its orbiting planets. The sense of the three circles spiralling inward towards future generations adds a cyclical time dimension that is absent in other story maps. The colours are bright and hopeful without any attempt at realism in any part of the map.

13 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Mid Western Sydney Focus Group

Regional Overview The second focus group was held at the Penrith campus of the University of Western Sydney and included eight educators from the Penrith, Blacktown and the Hills local government areas. The conversation again confirmed the use of Place as a conceptual framework and the clustering of a distinctive mid-western Sydney group with a focus on peri-urban development, pressure on farming lands and farming knowledge. The educators in this group predominantly represented government and local council. The story maps produced by this group were more dominated by text and lists and there was a marked difference between the volunteer or part time community educators and those with a full time government role. Two educators from Sydney Water attended this Focus Group with roles that crossed local government boundaries, and extended beyond the western Sydney region, however, their work was located at the interpretative centre at Warragamba Dam. The Educators Table 4 provides a summary of the Mid Western Sydney educators.

14 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Table 4: Mid Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary

ID Place Pedagogies Communities M-1-3 Behaviour change through education, Community members to Community based reskilling community, workshops (30 attend workshops and p.a), festivals, grants programs, external events, Coles Program. forces for behaviour change. M-1-4 Penrith – senior Events, workshops, blog, website, Schools, Childcare officer (wide range of festivals, info nights and sessions; orgs, government, activities and has 10 professional development for staff businesses, UWS, RCE. staff to implement). M-1-5 Visitors‟ Centre, Ed for primary and high school students Pre-, primary and Warragamba Dam, (water cycle and water efficiency, HSC secondary schools. Community sites. chemistry, biology), Water for Life expo, dam visits, classroom sessions. M-1-6 Visitors Centre, Community-based conservation (e.g. Community members. Warragamba Dam Streamwatch), Rural Living Handbook, Field days on farms 16 Sustainable Grazing Programs, Grants Program, Science informs behaviour change. M-1-7 On-site education Programs tailored to community and Councils, Residents via throughout service provided (face to face; ed bin pick up. community materials, bin stickers). Agenda is negotiable. M-6-1 Outdoors, Council Workshop facilitator, hands on, Work with Councils locations. experiential (less as councils Agenda determined in the consultancy. employ their owned. Staff). M-6-2 Outdoors, Council Horticulture degree, workshop Councils (wants full locations. facilitation. time work). M-3-2 Agricultural Environmental activities – tree planting Network of schools in education in school (council); Cumberland Region, and community-based Agenda set by HSC + commercial operations activities. (Cfeeds), local community groups (Rotary), Council.

Representative Place Story Maps

1. ‘Mary’, Education Officer, Cleanaway Waste Services

So, we‟re working with all the different core communities in each of the different councils and they‟re all going to vary, looking at different areas of housing, whether its single unit dwellings or multi- unit dwellings, and they all have their own specific needs for education when it comes to using their base services correctly.

15 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Place, identity and community My map shows us being in the middle, like our depot is sort of in a central location, and then we‟re travelling out to all the different areas across Sydney metro and we‟re providing specific services to each of those different councils and we have different contractual requirements for each of those areas, as well. I‟m probably a little bit more concentrating around the inner west with some of the specific projects I do, but we do also work with Blacktown – sorry, Blacktown that was my attempt at your logo. So, we have a number of different education programs that we need to tailor for each of our customers, depending on the community and the services that we are providing in those areas.

Pedagogical practices Mary‟s work involves school education programs with pre-schools, primary and secondary schools and community workshops related to using the services correctly, to avoid contamination. She also teaches people about farming, composting, shopping correctly, to minimise waste. They use a combination of face to face with residents, educational materials, and public education strategies such as stickers on bins.

Central image, icons and connections The central image is a big blue garbage truck driving along the two black lines of road. The garbage truck is connected by single lines to five circle hubs all around it representing the different councils. Each circle hub is connected by lines to four further circles representing the different entities such as schools, businesses, single resident dwellings and multiple resident dwellings. Icons represent the dwellings and stick figure people are beside the dwellings. Garbage bins are prominent in every location, with their three different coloured lids - yellow, green and red. The main road is central to the place story map and leads into and out of the A3 sheet. There are many connections via the roads and these have been grouped into particular communities. It feels as if the work of picking up refuse is never ending, symbolised in the road that twists off into the distance. Interestingly there are no trees or bush landscapes, gardens or yards in the image so it is very much about the built environment. There is no connection made to where the refuse goes after it is collected and no recycle station is evident in this place story map.

16 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries

2. Suze, Freelance consultant

At Longneck we‟re doing an interpretive trail to try and introduce the kids as they walk in, because they‟ve got to walk in about 300 or 400 metres from the road; to try and introduce an understanding of the aboriginal terms for the local flora and fauna.

Place, identity and community My involvement is actually is fairly organic compared to most people here, who have got a steady role. I have my own business heading called Eco … which has a little side-line of educating for environmental responsibility. And in doing that over the years I have done a lot of facilitation of workshops at Blacktown Council, at Balkham Hills Council, Hawkesbury and a few other different places. That has lessened somewhat over the years, as the councils have taken on more of their own education programs. I used to do a lot more for Blacktown council before a lot of their own staff had taken over a lot of the workshops which involved composting, worm farming, gardening and those sorts of things, attending festivals.

17 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Pedagogical practices Suze has been involved with writing the national curriculum sustainability objectives across the different key learning areas, particularly the arts. She sees „teaching and learning about sustainability in the environment as something that is experienced, something that‟s hands-on, and that‟s why I like to work outside‟. She is interested in incorporating Aboriginal knowledge into her work: „she and I are actually - at Longneck we‟re doing an interpretive trail to try and introduce the kids as they walk in, because they‟ve got to walk in about 300 or 400 metres from the road; to try and introduce an understanding of the aboriginal terms for the local flora and fauna, and to ask some of her – some of her interesting things, you know, maybe like, did you know that aboriginal people used to paperbark for nappies and things like that, you know, sort of things that might stick in their brain‟.

Central image, icons and connections The central image in this place story map is three large words under each other printed in colour – „Teaching‟ in red, „Learning‟ in black and „Experiencing in green. Around these words are five symbols of activities, each with a label - compost, a stack of three books with a black arrow to the word „outside‟, trees, blue sky, yellow circle sun and tiny human figures sitting on a red seat, labelled „mangrove wetlands‟, a group of tall trees with two small human figures walking on a brown track leading into the trees labelled „Cumberland plain‟, the outline of a gecko labelled „aboriginal knowledge‟. Each image except the Cumberland plain is shaded over with a different pastel colour but there is no connection between them. This map suggests that each of these is a separate areas of activity that are all related by the words teaching, learning and experiencing, but they are not well connected representing the nature of voluntary and freelance work. Every component image relates to the outside world and experiencing the natural environment in a physical sense. The learning symbolised by the pile of books is taken outside. People learn in the natural environment - two people walking on the bush track in the Cumberland plain, and two others sitting by the mangroves. The challenges are that there is no cohesive structure of connection even though there is knowledge about each individual area.

18 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries

19 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Inner Western Sydney Region

Regional Overview The third focus group was held at the Parramatta campus of the University of Western Sydney and included nine educators from the Inner Western Sydney. Eight participants were female, one male group and this group was the most talkative of the three. Three childcare directors/workers had immigrated from Turkey and a volunteer community worker from Thailand. The concerns of all the educators focused on multicultural issues with a strong focus on language translation, communication with CALD groups, basic integration teaching and the integration of social with environment sustainability. Sustainability issues included a focus on waste recycling as well as community gardens. Although the focus was different, because of the more densely populated, high multicultural urban location, the passion and enthusiasm for sustainability education was very strong. The Educators Table 5 provides a summary of the Inner Western Sydney educators.

20 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Table 5: Inner Western Sydney Educators‟ Summary

ID Place Pedagogies Communities I-1-8 Community and Education key to change rather than Schools, CALD community, school visits. agenda set by council. Environment is environ & sustain networks, outdoor classroom – authentic learning; volunteers. value local places in urban sites; Holistic cycle – stewardship of environment. Presentations in schools, workshops. I-1-9 Council office Linking educational programs & Waste management assoc, central. resources to the town plan and LGSA contractors, VITA, development applications – Feedback to Clean Away, Busy, Wellco. residents from bin inspections. Presentations, Events, Clean Up Australia Day. I-1- Council, Building relationships; at councils, scouts, Schools, Guides-Scouts, 10 Community guides then intertwine these. (short term CALD groups. (Scouts-Guides) contract work – frustrating). Business – Marine Ed in schools. I-1- Council office; Policy writing, Distribution of hard Community groups already 11 media, devices (tanks, solar panels, energy doing workshops. Council newspapers. saving), Outsourced education short term have funds to employ (sustainability ads in paper don‟t work). consultants- presenters. I-6-3 Volunteer- Cooking and sustainability workshops Community, healing, nature, vegetarian (like to start own business Whole System family Whole System Health, cooking classes. Health). Religion. Tai Chi. I-6-4 Business location Delivering workshops- presentations. Home; local shops, Uniting Community Church ethnic groups, locations. community garden. Transition Towns; Fairs, Social, Solar panels, Uniting Church. Business; Ed for sustainability, links to A2E2 committee, Envirodoc, High Schools, Penno, Workshops, TTA partnerships, PD. I-7-1 5 Childcare Excursions, value and respect cultures, 26 service links with NSW I-7-2 centres; 4 where Aboriginal awareness, inclusion, festival Gov, Local Govt and NGOs, I-7-3 clients, majority performances, services coming in-Fire in the areas of Health, or all have non- brigade etc. Education, Religion, Welfare. English speaking backgrounds, inclusion of special needs (autism).

21 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries Representative Place Story Maps

1. Joanne: Environmental Education Officer, Bankstown Council

Getting out and exploring and touching and feeling and that real authentic learning is really, really important, knowing where food comes from and where birds live and when you throw your rubbish on the ground, where does it end up.

Place, identity, community I work at Bankstown Council in the environment and education team as part of the sustainable development unit. Going back, everyone was talking about their history and where they‟re from and their past, I grew up the Blue Mountains and I‟ve always had a passion for nature and protecting nature, the bush. I believe that that should be there forever and for everyone to enjoy. So that‟s my passion for the environment. In my last position, I worked at Ashfield Council on a project called the GreenWay Sustainability Project which was a partnership between 4 councils and we had a number of sustainability projects over 3 years, funded by the state government. One of the projects I worked on was a schools project with local primary schools. I now believe, hence why I‟m in this role, that is really, really vital to work with children, to get environmental messages across early on. Because when you‟re older and working with adults, it‟s a lot harder to convince people.

Pedagogical practices Basically getting teachers and students out of the classroom and learning in the outdoors. And not getting on a bus and going a few hours away but exploring what‟s in your schoolyard or what‟s down the road, what‟s in your backyard. Bankstown people say to me, „Bankstown is so urban‟ and you‟ve got the Georges River and some of the beautiful outdoor areas – I‟m amazed. And with that, I think then they make more of a connection with their environment because they see it‟s in their backyard and they think, „It‟s mine and I‟m part of this‟. It‟s that stewardship and they feel they want to look after it and it‟s kind of that holistic – I guess that holistic cycle or process. That‟s why I think getting children connected with their local environment at a young age, not just talking in the classroom or looking at a whiteboard but getting out and exploring and touching and feeling and that real authentic learning is really, really important, knowing where food comes from and where birds live and when you throw your rubbish on the ground, where does it end up. Looking at the whole cycle and the whole system rather than reading about it, is one thing. Even working within Council and you‟re talking about the area that you work in, a lot of people have probably never been out to some of these fantastic places. I don‟t think you get the true feel for the area until you get out there and do that

Central image, icons and connections The central image in this place-story map is made up of „Environment + Education‟ in big green letters‟ surrounded by a wriggly green line and connected by red arrows to all of the 22 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries different sectors of engagement: Corporate sustainability, workshops, presentations, water, energy, transport, ws carpool; CALD community Arabic, Vietnamese; Schools, childcare, tertiary education, tours, workshops, resources, capacity building; Business; Community and council events - homegrown photo and gardens competition, what people love most about living in Bankstown, food, sustainability, national tree day, clean up days, Duck river; Env and sustainability networks; Community groups, Villawood community garden, Chester Hill edible garden; Greenway, observatory hill, DET accredited professional teachers program and also sustainability and environmental protection; Volunteer groups, need to connect with. Most of the map is print text but there are some stick figures, trees and grass, dollar signs, and a blue star accompanied by the words „Passion for education, connect with people and the environment‟. Interestingly the arrows are all one way, out towards the activities.

2. Mona, Owner/Director, Early Childhood Education Centres

Children, I believe, learn through - not just the interactions they have with people - but also the environment.

Place, identify, community I‟ll start off with my family on this side. This is my home and this is where I feel comfortable and relaxed and time out. So then my 3 children – I‟ve got 3 girls. And basically they‟re in

23 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries tutoring, so we‟re networking through their tutoring. I‟m also a consultant – a childcare consultant and help childcare services open even family day care services. Also the mosque is another place because my belief is Islam and so the mosque is part of our family and life. I have three childcare services - one at Busby, one at Guildford and one in Granville area. Now, they‟re 3 locations and in those three different places there are children from different cultures. In Busby, the main cultures and languages spoken is English and Anglo-Australian. However, all the programs are very much similar. The main language in Guildford would be Arabic and Indian. And in Granville, it‟s Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish and African. I think the more we‟re going into - learning about sustainable practices and having to enjoy outdoors more. And that‟s why I‟ve got the sky up there – and getting some vitamin D through the sun – has been one of those key focuses that I‟ve changed in my life. Because of a lot of its technology and my children are on their iPods and iPads and any other i-things.

Pedagogical practices We involve the children in excursions and going out, we actually get everyone to value and respect other people‟s cultures and a very strong Aboriginal awareness. We have a lot of children with disabilities as well in our services and we actually get them out and perform in festivals. They‟ll be performing on 1st of November which is the language and literacy. They‟ve also already been at the multicultural [festival] – they did a multicultural dance, 4 different languages. And so we just – that‟s basically what we do. And then we‟ve got people that come into our service, like the local community, like the ambulance, fire brigade, police, nurse, the local doctors. I mean they all influence what goes on in life. I mean children, I believe, learn through not just the interactions they have with people but also the environment. So all of that has been put in. We did a course, a Living Green course, together and a project on sustainable practices. And we all had to do our own project and set up our own policy on what our thoughts and our values and philosophies. And what inspired me about it – I really didn‟t know much about climate change. But yeah, when I did it, it opened my eyes to a lot of other new things. So now I‟ve got a new philosophy altogether now. We‟ve introduced, as she was saying, the recycling bins, a worm farm. This is our compost bin. We also did a fruit and veggie garden that children can taste – they grow it themselves and they eat from it as well. And they‟re going home and taking those practices back and saying, „Mum, we should be doing recycling. We should be doing composting‟.

Central image, icons and connections Mona‟s place story map is crowded with brightly coloured images and text. There is no one central image but the A3 sheet is richly filled with icons with the three childcare centres under their rainbows connected to many other icons in symbol and text: Busby Childcare Centre is linked to local doctors, DECS, Local council, Energy saving solo power, Local dentist, digital story sustainable practices, living green course project, main language Anglo-Aust English, Arabic, Chinese. Rawson Road Childcare is linked to: Ambulance, SDN inclusion support, Auburn botanical gardens, Aboriginal awareness, Local schools, Worm farms, multicultural Granville centre, fruit and vege garden, main languages Arabic and Indian, other early childhood services. Palm Childcare is linked to: Fire brigade, Police, fund raising charity. In the middle left hand segment there is a dark pink love heart which has more white space around it than the rest. The love heart is coloured pink but in fine black drawing is a house with five figures inside and the label „My Home‟. Around the outside of the love heart linked 24 Educators‟ Place Maps and Stories Focus Group Summaries by fine black lines are all the aspects of her personal life – the mosque, the gym, boot camp, her parents, children‟s school, consulting and tutoring. The community is the environment in which this educator finds herself I and she is deeply embedded in the actions and experiences of her environment spiritually, practically, socially, emotionally.

25

CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS TO COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

A total of 50 ideas and issues were recorded across all three Focus Groups when participants discussed the particular challenges they faced when trying to engage their communities. The Inner-Western Group identified 18 challenges and barriers to their work with communities, which comprised 36% of the total. The Outer-Western Group recorded 20 comments (40%) whilst the Mid-Western Group listed 12 challenges and barriers (24%).

The challenges the educators identified as impacting negatively on their community engagement work could be grouped around four themes. These were the specific challenges of (1) engaging with different sections of the community for specific reasons; (2) collaborating with other educators; (3) designing successful programs/workshops and (4) bureaucratic and work conditions. Table 7 provides a summary of these themes and sub- themes and has recorded the frequency with which the comment was made by the educators.

Challenges/Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries Table 6: Challenges/Barriers to Community Engagement

N (%) Total Themes and Sub-themes with Representative Examples N=50 (%) Community members 11 (22) 20 (40) Attitudes and Knowledge within Community Groups  Inability or unwillingness of people to travel to different suburb  Ambivalence, apathy, no motivation about the use and meaning of the term „sustainability‟, seriousness of the issues  Disengaged difficult to reach (e.g. youth) and preaching to the converted Dislocation from environment 5 (10)  Disaffected portion of the community, disconnection from the natural landscape e.g. migrants „insecurity‟  Increasing separation of individuals (from community) environment  Building community dialogue about local places Socio-economic factors 4 (8)  People with more money and time can come but those with less cannot Collaborating with other educators (Schools, Community) 10 (20) 10 (20)  Constraints to participate in schools (time/resources, cultural sensitivity, current curriculum, teacher training, better support needed, teachers‟ level of interest)  Differences in relation to where educators are in their environmental journey Designing successful programs/workshops 10 (20) 10 (20)  Credibility of sustainability programs  Avoid information overload for community…they switch off  „Climate Change‟ causes people to „turn off‟  The problem of language and terminology  Invisibility and inaccessibility of community facilities that are available Bureaucratic constraints 3 (6) 10 (20) Regulation and institutionalisation  Compliance with bureaucracy legislation  Difficulty for community members in approaching council Lack of support – Time 5 (10)  Sense of no time, Lack of time Lack of support - Funding 2 (4)  Grant applications, writing and admin  Ineligibility to apply for some funding

27 Challenges/Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries Educators’ statements about the challenges of their work

A large number of educators specified that finding and engaging the „middle group‟ of parents with young families was difficult, and that this group, in itself, is not a static, easily identifiable group.

25 to 45 year olds especially in new developing areas don't come to workshops. They don‟t come to a lot of things that we put on. They‟re focussed on money and family sustainability is not a priority.

A related issue was that the educators often felt that they were „preaching to the converted‟ with the same attendees appearing over and over again in their workshops.

People that tend to come are the older community, usually they're the same people that come to the workshops, tend to be the people that already are doing the right thing in terms of sustainability in their homes anyway.

The location of the workshops was raised as a barrier couched in terms of the inability or unwillingness of people to travel to different suburbs.

In Blacktown even though it is one council area everyone identifies with where they live, they don't necessarily want to come to Mount Druitt for a workshop or you know what I mean, it's a bit of a hike to go all the way out to Seven Hills for a workshop.

A barrier to engaging with local communities is the issue of accessibility of Council buildings and their institutional symbolism:

I don‟t know how many people are likely to go into a council building to find out information because council buildings can be quite intimidating.

The educators also spoke about the challenge of addressing the credibility of their programs and being mindful that their language and the discourse of „sustainability‟ was at times a deterrent to participation by some of their local community members.

One of our challenges is about credibility and I think that‟s the case for all the sustainability programs in general in terms of it's a credible source and people have an image I think about sustainability and hippies and that type of thing as well, we have mixed success.

„Sustainability‟ just sounds so boring, it's so kind of clichéd too, over done, but what else is there, what other words are there?

For some educators the concept of „sustainability‟ itself was thought to be not well defined and understood by community members and educators alike:

28 Challenges/Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries One of the challenges - we don‟t even have a corporate definition of sustainability and if people in an organisation have different definitions to us it's a triple bottom line or quadruple bottom line approach where it's the people, it's the environment and it's getting people actively involved in the governance of our area as well. To some people it's putting on a water tank and saving money or putting on solar and saving money and for some people it's purely a green thing so that‟s even just internally within council … and we get the issue where we say we want to do this and do something about social sustainability and it's like well why are you doing that, isn't that a social thing. Why aren‟t community services doing that instead and that‟s what the challenge is as you said so many different angles on what sustainability could be.

For another the evolution of meaning through terms such as „environment‟ and „sustainability‟ has created a difficulty:

It hasn‟t been in great depth because before it was the environment and that got kind of pulled out of shape and distorted and hijacked and stuff and then sustainability appeared and that was really new and now the same sort of things happened to that so is it then going to move into a new term?

In the cases of both Aboriginal community participation and participation by members of culturally and linguistically diverse communities, the use of different terms and concepts represent a challenge for community educators that many may not even be aware of. One educator, for example, said that there is no equivalent word to „sustainability‟ in the Arabic language. In order to research the meaning of the idea for herself she actually returned to her birthplace in a village in Turkey and made a digital story about their simple lives in the village – carting water from a well, cooking on a small wood fire, growing their own fruit and vegetables in communal village gardens. She brought this back to use as a resource to explain what the concept of sustainability might mean to her and to communicate to her immigrant compatriots.

Similarly, Chris Tobin, a community educator of the Darug language group explained that for Aboriginal people the concept of „Country‟ includes all of the aspects of sustainability – social, cultural, environmental and economic.

What I get the chance to do sometimes is just connect people, and it‟s all – I mean social justice and the environmental outcomes to me are the same, we work for those. We want a healthy community, sustainable one. I get a chance to share with people that we have a heritage of good custodianship of country, and it‟s not the short term aims that we often have to abide by these days. And so the outer circle [of country] actually is the ancestors, the people gone before us, this is us here [in the middle] and then the ones that come up behind us are the children. These are all part of our identity and they have to be taken into consideration when we make decisions about country and that sort of thing.

29

ENABLERS OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Participants recorded a total of 76 responses when discussing successful strategies for engaging community members in environmental and sustainability activities. The Mid-West Focus Group recorded 35 enabling strategies (46%) of the total comments; the Inner-West Focus Group suggested 24 (32%) of enabling strategies, facilitators of engagement and the Outer-West Group listing 17 (22%).

The themes which emerged from clustering these enabling strategies were identified and organised around WHO, HOW, WHAT and WHERE to engage the community. Table 6 summarises the sub-categories within these themes and also records the frequency with which the comment was recorded across all three Focus Groups.

30 Challenges and Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries

Table 7: Strategies to Enable Community Engagement N (%) Total Themes N=76 HOW – Successful workshop and program design 21 (28) 53 (71)  Experiential learning, hands on, sensory, living it, animation, context spark  Virtual workshop (online extensions to workshops, digital stories translated)  Info/knowledge exchange, (co-learning with guest speakers, presenters and peers)  Structure workshops in the format of popular TV shows, popular culture  Build on popular workshops such as bread making  Offer short courses as a taster, longer courses and information from evaluation follow up  Apply for money and funding  Aims and outcomes (focus on behaviour change, focus on goals, different programs with different goals)  Need time HOW – Motivate and involve the community 18 (24)  Look at what will motivate to create change, encourage families, enjoyable  Involve the community, (consultation/connection is the key, community sense of ownership, their actions make a difference)  Choose issues requiring action for specific local effects, „what‟s in it for me‟ motivation  Look at achievements and celebrate these, not bogged down in negativity (acknowledge change process is slow, accept small changes on a personal level)  Be flexible, keep up with the times, lead by example  Social pressure (Using social norms and peer pressure for some disengaged groups) HOW – Tailor approach to audience (language, age, socio-economic) 9 (13)  Designing targeted innovative age appropriate strategies for the hard to reach  Avoiding concepts or words that some find difficult, use familiar language  Recognising the different hooks or pressure points for different audiences  Recognising the impact of peer pressure HOW - Inform the community 5 (6)  Not just advertising (promote innovative program design, personal touch for disengaged)  General and popular media, PR, Newspapers, Council LGA surveys  Developing other avenues for producers: Radio ABC, Livestock programs, Masterchef, getaway, good weekend WHO - Know your community 6 (8) 11 (14)  Understanding diversity (migrants, indigenous youth, disadvantage, the unknown e.g. bush)  Understanding community values (landscape, culture, history)  Identify the „middle group‟, the hard to reach WHO - Engage networks 5 (6)  Forming partnerships to extend programs and resources by working with likeminded people  Dialogue „whole of system approach‟  Sustainability officers as brokers in new developments WHAT – Use content appeal in workshops and programs 7 (9) 7 (9)  What is topical? (people open to change then, real cost to the earth, political education, global politics to local activities, what will benefit them directly?)  What is causing financial pressure? (education in energy saving-people are interested) WHERE – Be visible in the community 5 (6) 5 (6)  Projects need to be visible not hidden away (main street, shopping centres, hook into other public events, regular events eg. library story sessions)  Going to where people are, instead of expecting them to come to „us‟

31 Challenges and Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries

Strategies to engage the disengaged

HOW to engage communities accounted for 71% of all comments relating to „enabling strategies‟ with four sub-themes being identified from the data:

 successful program and workshop design  strategies for motivating their communities  tailoring delivery approach to target group  successful lines of information dissemination into the community

A predominant focus of this discussion was how to „engage the disengaged‟. An overall sense was that community members in general were aware of sustainability issues but felt overwhelmed by the enormity of planetary problems. Educators said that a strong motivating factor for „engaging the disengaged‟ was to be able to demonstrate to them that the collective actions of individuals does make a difference:

… you need to demonstrate to people, have some proof so that they don‟t feel overwhelmed with, „Well me - like one person doing that is just a drop in the ocean‟. So some actual proof … the social proof is what you're talking about. With the Melbourne Water example, that competition, … for some social groups the suburb next door is doing better so then they want to step up their game.

A successful strategy for engaging members of all communities was to meet people where they are at - including their places of congregation, interests, languages and cultural preferences. For some instances this was as simple as setting up stalls in a shopping centre:

… to go to shopping centres and we would set up our worm farm and compost bin in the middle of the shopping centre and hail people down and go „Hi, can I tell you something about composting. Have you seen some worms?‟ and each day that we did that we would run a free compost set up and the person would not only win a bin, they would win us going out to their house and setting it all up.

Another successful strategy across all age groups was to deliver workshops on popular interest topics. Bread-making, for example, was the most popular of all the sustainability workshops offered by one local council with a waiting list of 80-100 people. Food and cooking in general was a popular way of engaging the disengaged:

Sometimes it's about getting away from just the sustainability thing, the same thing, we got an ex Master Chef contestant to do the cooking demonstration workshop for us, this year we're going with more of a health focus.

32 Challenges and Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries

It was agreed by all educators that the most disengaged age group were middle income parents with young families in 25-35 year age group. The most creative suggestions for engaging in this group were to do with identifying where they meet in a public community setting and joining in with them there:

At the library they have preschool story time and so you have a whole lot of people that attend this. They don't really care what it is that you're going to talk about or what book you're going to read to them. They're there every single week with their child to attend story time and we‟re able to use that opportunity to conduct workshops. A lot of non-English speaking adults are there as well with their children so it means not only are we reaching the young children who are going to be able to go home and encourage a follow up of the content that‟s been discussed but we're also serving to pitch at a level that some of these people that can't always understand a lot of English, they're going to be able to get a lot out of the workshops as well. The last workshops that we did at preschool story time I think had close to 80 people adults and children.

Younger adults in the 15-20 year old age group. The educators discussed that ensuring the appeal of their workshops to the target group often called for creative thinking where the sustainability education and actions are linked into fun, cultural activities:

The 15 to 20 year old age group is a very different kind of approach to the 25 to 45 year olds, for example for us we're looking at running a break dancing competition where you‟ve got to sit on a bike and ride the bike to power the music.

For low socio-economic status communities the pressure of finance was a strong motivating factor for them to become engaged in reducing their energy consumption:

…we have lots of people in our area who can't afford their bills, they‟ve got 10 people living in a 2 or 3 bedroom home, we've got an aging populations so we've got people that are 70, 80 years old who have been hospitalised because they can't afford to put heating on in their home so it's a completely different audience.

In the highly culturally and linguistically diverse locations in inner western Sydney there are many specific issues of language and culture to be addressed, particularly for those of refugee backgrounds. One educator, for example, said „there are 127 community languages - our 3 main cultural groups are our Arabic population, our Vietnamese and our Chinese population‟. The issues raised by educators in relation to sustainability education for these groups included food security and basic shopping education, basic education in refuse disposal and language issues. Creative responses to these issues included the development of visual languages for communication:

33 Challenges and Barriers to Community Engagement Focus Group Summaries

Our team [decided] not to translate and we‟ve done that because we found that just because someone speaks the language, it doesn‟t mean that they necessarily can read the language … we‟ve gone down the track of using pictures to tell a story so - and we check our pictures with our community so that, you can basically show them a picture and say “What does that tell you?” and if someone can turn around to me and say „That pictures telling me that I need to put my recyclables in the bin, loosely without a plastic bag‟ I go „Yeah‟ that‟s exactly what that picture is trying to tell you.

Special culturally appropriate strategies and pedagogies were also described as relevant for Aboriginal communities in relation to the connection between disengaged youth, schools, and communities:

I encourage them (teachers) to go out into the community and ask community people – bring the community into the school and get local community, whether its parents, friends to come into the school and talk to the kids. That‟s why it‟s really important that schools build really strong relationships with that Aboriginal community because a lot of Aboriginal people feel very hesitant to go into schools.

34

EDUCATORS’ LEARNING AND SUPPORT NEEDS

When considering their learning and support needs, the educators across the three Focus Groups proposed roughly the same number of suggestions (one third each). A total of 136 suggestions have been analysed and presented in three tables. Table 8, summarises the Professional Learning Needs of the educators. Table 9 displays the Support Needs and Structures the educators perceive as critical to their work and Table 10 summarises how the educators see UWS, OHE and RCE as linking with and assisting them in their daily practice.

Professional learning needs The topics proposed by the educators as integral to their ongoing professional learning (and in order of the frequency with which the item was mentioned), were: 1) establishing and maintaining formal and informal networks; 2) updating their knowledge and skills in the areas of grant writing, information technology and pedagogies of engagement; 3) participating in formal learning opportunities and 4) learning local knowledge and resource availability. An overview of the specific professional learning need areas suggested by the educators appears in Table 8.

35 Educator Learning and Support Needs Focus Group Summaries

Table 8: Educator Professional Learning Needs

Frequency Professional Learning Needs N (%) Total=72 Establishing and maintaining networks – Communities of Practice 28 (38)  Professional development opportunities to meet and build networks with other teachers  Partnerships with skilled people (water testing, finance, grants, bookkeeping)  I need to network to maintain professional standards at the higher academic level  How to use networks effectively, Linking into networks to share ideas  Partnership/relationship building and keeping (networks)  Not reinventing the wheel. There are lots of other groups/networks websites already out there  What is happening in other organisations Grant writing 9 (13)  How to write grants and where are they currently available, Reduce the loops in the grant applications, Grant applications too overwhelming  Council to promote awareness of grants Technology 8 (11)  IT digital media  Understanding rebates for new technologies.  Need to keep up with technology in education (e.g. QR codes, Apps, VC)  Facebook (networking opportunities), Blogs, Databases Pedagogies of engagement 8 (11)  Engaging ways to teach topics, to teach parents and community  How to facilitate, how to engage, how to communicate, how to recruit and empower teachers  Case studies of engagement (How, what worked, what didn‟t work) Formal learning opportunities 13 (18)  Conference attendance  Australian curriculum knowledge  Psychology and behaviour change  Courses  Genuine evaluation of education beyond bean counting  Research/social research training - UWS (keynote speakers via video- conferencing, evaluation, community development through informal contacts and learning)  Strategies for professional development Learning local knowledge and resource availability 6 (8)  Touring education facilities  Understanding of Aboriginal culture  Participating in on-the-ground work

36 Educator Learning and Support Needs Focus Group Summaries

Educators’ support needs Table 9 outlines a summary of the type of the support the educators viewed as necessary but which currently, is not being received. Most frequently mentioned was the need for additional staff to ensure the ongoing success of programs and workshops. The other themes in order of importance (the frequency with which the topic was raised) are listed below in Table 9.

Table 9: Educator Support Needs for Community Engagement

Frequency Support Needed N (%) Total=63 Additional staff (wide range of support staff requested) 18 (29)  Facilitators, Staff to implement projects with support from local papers  Support Management  Paid project officer/coordinator to promote our work  Paid media support officer  Speakers of different languages  Volunteers  Administrators  Online staff  More people power  UWS, RCE, OHE to advocate, be a point of liaison for staff, within and external to their organisations Resources 9 (14)  Pool of resources which can be accessed  Centralised information and resources for council and community  Info in different languages, Language translation at local government and more services  Books and pamphlets  Kits (environmental kits)  Venues and locations to run programs Money – funding 9 (14)  Money, government grants and funding  Overcome costs borne by members/fund raising  Long term commitment and funding for the environment, programs and education  Problem/recognition of uncounted cost of educational engagement with community via volunteer organisations instead of seeing volunteers as bureaucratic KPI Free asset. Comments like increase your volunteers by 10% Systemic / Organisational support 9 (14)  Support from my own organisation (the bureaucracy)  I want to be connected to the system that will make a difference to what we are trying to do – Education, health, environment departments  Higher profile with council  Long term planning (strategic) for environment and sustainability  Award and encouragement for industry leaders - being valued Time 7 (11)  Time  Time to do a program properly, realistic, measureable Local media/advertising / Getting the message Out 5 (9)  Support from local media  Highlight positive messages and community champions Ongoing professional development 2 (3)

37 Educator Learning and Support Needs Focus Group Summaries

 Ongoing training (regulations, legislation, technologies)  Ongoing support and training to turn enviro officers into educators and change agents Other 4 (6)  Flexibility - go to the community rather than the community come to us  Exposure to working with young people  More/greater access to target audience  UWS students to visit centres-recruit them into environmental pathways (messages and methodologies in society)

Priority needs The Inner Western Sydney Focus Group was asked to prioritise their support needs and to offer for discussion their single most important need. These were:

 More financial resourcing - insufficient funding, money,  Needing more volunteers,  Language education, support to get the message across to non-English speakers,  Mobilising partnerships and connections with other organisations and  Having time to access information about sustainability education programs, resources, case studies already available through the internet (e.g. Sustainability Reading Hub)

This priority list from the educators themselves confirms findings from other research about the community sustainability education sector (Somerville & Green, 2013). While community sustainability initiatives are emerging worldwide as a source of innovative responses to urgent planetary problems, the sector is the most poorly resourced and the least understood. The location of highly innovative teaching and learning, community sustainability education is an essential source of innovation for the formal education sector. It is the most efficient and cost effective form of sustainability engagement in terms of the potential of local partnerships, local networks, and the ability to mobilise committed volunteers. The project has identified the unique place-based nature of sustainability educators‟ work and the importance of building connections across the sector to leverage momentum for transformational change. Educators identified the proliferation of information on the web but welcomed the opportunity for authentic face to face connections and information sharing as essential to their own professional development.

These research findings are limited to the perspectives of the 25 educators who participated in the focus groups in the western Sydney region. The project is ongoing, however, in the sense that the sustainability educators are connected to community members through the community forums conducted in Stage 2 of the project. It is also ongoing in the sense that the Our Place project will be extended to other regions in NSW. The findings about the work of these community sustainability educators in each different region will add cumulative weight to our understanding of their work in engaging their communities to look after their local places.

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1: List of Acronyms ...... 40

Appendix 2: Invitation Email...... 41

Appendix 3: Story Maps and Pedagogical Practices: The Educators‟ Discussions ...... 42

Appendix 4: In-depth Analysis of Individual Story Maps ...... 56

Appendices

Appendix 1: List of Acronyms

A2E2 Australian Association of Environmental Education ACF/AABR Australian Conservation Foundation/ Australian Association of Bush Regenerators ATA Alternative Technology Centre BMt Blue Mountains CALD Culturally and Linguistically Diverse CER Centre for Educational Research (UWS) CLM Contaminated Land Management CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation GWS Greater Western Sydney HEN Hawkesbury Environmental Network HRN Hawkesbury Rainforest Network HH Hawkesbury Harvest HSC The Higher School Certificate LGA Local Government Authority LGSA Local Government and Shires Association of NSW NGO Non-Government Organisation OHE Office of Environment and Heritage, PhD Doctor of Philosophy (degree) RCE Regional Centre of Expertise (United Nations) SEIFA Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas TAFE Technical and Further Education TTA Transition Towns Australia UN RCE United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development UWS University of Western Sydney

40 Appendices

Appendix 2: Invitation Email

Do you want to better engage your community in looking after the local environment? Are you based in Western Sydney, the Hunter or the Illawarra? The University of Western Sydney, the Hunter Wetlands Centre and the Office of Environment and Heritage invite you to share your story at a regional Our Place for Educators focus group. The results of the focus groups will be used to develop regional activities to support those who engage the community in looking after the environment. Who can participate in Our Place for Educators? The focus groups are for people who conduct environmental/sustainability education (paid and volunteer) that helps the community to get involved in looking after the environments of Western Sydney, the Hunter or the Illawarra region. Participants might be from local government, a business that has a community engagement project or a volunteer with a group that has environmental engagement activities for the community (eg Landcare). What will participants do? From September to October 2012 up to 60 people in each region will participate in small focus groups to discuss community engagement about the environment and share stories. The focus groups will be held mid afternoon at a convenient location in each area. The focus groups will specifically look at how educators are reaching across the community including people from multicultural backgrounds, businesses, Aboriginal communities, early childhood, youth, families and schools and also across a range of environmental issues. All focus group participants in a region are then invited to a regional forum in November - December, where the findings will be presented and future directions that can support educators are discussed. Our Place for Educators is part of the ongoing Our Place project. This aims to help the broader community to get involved in looking after the local environment through forums and events. Participants are also invited to be part of this project. Interested? To participate in a focus group please send an email to: [email protected] by Monday 13 August. In your email please include:  your name, phone and preferred email address  the region that you work in (Western Sydney, Illawarra or the Hunter)  a paragraph that tells us a bit about the kind of community engagement that you do. Information received will be used by project partners for the purpose of invitation to the focus groups only. For further information call Sue Burton on 8837 6007.

Please pass on this invitation and thank you for your interest.

Our Place for Educators

A collaboration between the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development – Greater Western Sydney, the Centre of Educational Research UWS, the Hunter Wetlands Centre and the Office of Environment and Heritage.

41 Appendices

Appendix 3: Story Maps and Pedagogical Practices: The Educators’ Discussions

The educators‟ stories included below are extracts from the transcript stories that accompanied their maps. These stories followed the production of story maps, which allowed the educators to spatially represent the place of their work and the communities and agencies with whom they engage within that space. So in this sense the stories are produced from the visual/spatial mapping rather than the other way around, beginning with words. The analysis of the story maps themselves is included in Appendix 2 but in a sense they are a means to enable educators to conceptualise the place of their work and the nature of their work spatially. A selected number of story maps are included as examples of how the visual and spatial mapping enabled the stories to be told. The educators‟ stories are presented according to the three focus groups in which they participated as the geographical clustering was the most significant means of categorizing the stories.

De-identification of the participating educators follows the coding procedure outlined on page 9 of this Report.

Outer Western Sydney Focus Group O-4-1: Bush Regeneration Officer Place I work for Hawkesbury Council so what I have tried to do is encapsulate the map of the Hawkesbury LGA and I think that the river‟s quite important and it‟s tributary because I said the Hawkesbury River so I started with Penrith because the LGA comes in at Wiseman‟s Ferry. So there‟s all the smiley faces of all the Bushcare groups, I‟m the Council‟s Community Bushcare Officer. So there‟s the Grose River, there‟s Redbank Creek, Kurrajong Creek, Colo River, Webb‟s Creek and McDonald River. They‟re systems through the Kurrajong and before that transition … where it‟s a bit hilly and a bit flat and then the Hawkesbury Community Nursery that green plant there and that‟s the smiley face as well, the community volunteers that work there. Pedagogical practices I do bushland regeneration where people do bush regeneration in natural areas and usually let the bush dictate what it wants to do. With the young kids, like with the scouts, people who want to get their badges and so on, but primarily its retirees. We‟ve got an Aboriginal group here but non-Aboriginal people are more than more than welcome – at Lower Portland. O-2-1: Volunteer Co-ordinator, Hawkesbury Harvest So this is our vista out here the Hawkesbury River and the important thing for me in the communities I work with and what I do is, the positioning of this area, this place with the urban and Sydney‟s development and particularly the reasons why the interest group that I work with, Hawkesbury Harvest, came about in the first place, which was urban development, the pressure on farmland for housing, the situation of

42 Appendices

farmers with the food system and the pressure of development with the dominance of the retail chains in basically wiping out agriculture. I work for the University, the Bringing Knowledge to Life thing was what they always did, my area of research is rural communities and tourism but I activate that research through Hawkesbury Harvest. Pedagogical practices The kinds of groups we work with are rural community primarily through Harvest and the peri-urban residents that live out in this particular part of Sydney. Addressing issues of quality of life, food supply, food quality, food excess and equity. Those original big agendas that are all linked to obesity and all those things. What‟s really important to most of the groups that we work with, are livelihoods, the importance of the issues in the Sydney basin about development and the way food systems work, sustainability and particularly the landscape out there. And in this place, Hawkesbury [campus of UWS], the heritage landscape out here, both indigenous and the farming and European heritage that is here and is rapidly disappearing with one set of the landscape coming in over the top of others all the time. This here represents the role we play in trying to activate the urban to the cause, giving them an understanding about being educated about the issues. O-1-1: Education Officer, Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens We‟re out here at Mt Tomah, so we get lots of communities coming to us, but we‟re also allowed to go out to communities and we have communities coming up to us. We run things like workshops, people like Eric come and help us deliver. We also have Aboriginal community coming up and teaching about plants, teaching TAFE, schools, universities coming to that place. We also are allowed to go out, occasionally, so I‟ll work with Hawkesbury Community, the Blue Mountains Community and the Lithgow Communities, with the power stations out there. Lots of things with school gardens, growing plants, so that they have a sense of their school place, or their community place. The Darug ladies will come up, I took the out harvesting yams, they didn‟t know how to identity the yams but we went out there and we found all these different yams. Pedagogical practices We just got out and explore the landscape when we‟re at Tomah, or if it‟s, if I‟m going to their place we look at their place and try and work out how their place works or how their connections within their place and how the plants all work the landscape. So if we go in there and work out how do we design a garden? So draw some pictures like this and work out the garden will work, that‟s for the aboriginal community. We run orderly treasure hunts, self guided, for families, that‟s been running now for 10 years, which is low cost. $3 they get a treasure map and it‟s like an eco trail every week, it‟s always different, there‟s messages embedded in there. And kids go and they‟re actually running around the garden, like trying to find the next thing and they‟re learning about things. O-2-2: Earthcare Co-ordinator Hawkesbury Earthcare Centre over here, we rent that from the University, we‟ve been there about 21 years and we fly under the radar, mostly, and that is how we‟ve been able to survive. There‟s a lot of things happening and all of a sudden it is in the spotlight. Earthcare is its own little culture in that it‟s a small group, it‟s a tribal nature, it‟s Henry Doubleday‟s Research and the ATA so it‟s 2 organisations come together on the site and rent the land off the uni. So we get cheap rent, but of course - and this is where we sit here in the centre, so I put us in the centre. So we connect

43 Appendices

university, UWS is there, I think we offer a lot of benefit to UWS, mainly students but also to the staff and people who are in there – there‟s actually 10 students over there working on gardens just, it‟s just taken off at the moment. So but there‟s been times over the 20 years when there‟s been no-one there for 6 weeks in a row too, so it‟s very much low budget kind of thing. But the other context we work in too of course, is in the Hawkesbury area because we are local sort of thing and we‟re getting a reputation there too and a lot of people know the centre and in indeed we‟re dealing with technological ATA issues, like solar power and things too. But the organic growing side of things, we‟ve got a bit of bushland now too and permaculture, so it‟s a bit of everything, and then we attract people from all over, the Hawkesbury River is here of course too, sense of place, geographic, it‟s a major geographic icon of the area I think. And of course, the city‟s here on the horizon too, that‟s looming out there. Pedagogical practices … the globe is here to of course, and we relate to that too, the RCE. A lot of things we identify with are global problems anyway too over population and waste and pollution and decreasing agriculture and decreasing natural environment and all that sort of stuff too so we obviously have that in the back of our mind. And also there‟s other direct links too like of course with the Botanic Gardens, I work there, but there‟s a connection in terms of plant knowledge and stuff too. Within here there‟s a closer connection with the Hawkesbury Rainforest Network which of course I‟m involved with as well too, which focusses on people identifying their own plants in their area too. But the Centre itself is a bit of a model, I actually started the Earthcare Centre with a group of likeminded people. We‟re not trying to be all things to all people, but provide a place where people can have experiential learning. So but there‟s links too –I see ourselves as part of a node on a network which means any weaknesses we have can actually be directed to other people. O-2-3: Co-ordinator, Hawkesbury Environment Network (HEN) Mine‟s been a bit of a journey from the beginnings up here where I lived in the Blue Mountains and was influenced by role models very early in the piece. The greens are actually places significant to the way that I thought about ecosystems and the origins are my formal work. I‟m now down here under that retirement line and the trajectory off the page if you like. So the formal stuff with university where I started off in Vet Science then went to CSIRO then became a school teacher, then that all changed when I reared 2 children, and became tied down to what was happening on my own place of 20 acres, looking after that up in Kurrajong. And that‟s actually where the big change happened for me, and I became extremely bored and joined the Australian Plant Society which I focussed on and that became unsatisfactory because people were just doing plants and identifying things so I became involved in other eco stuff. On this side of retirement I‟ve realised that what I‟m really focussing on is people actually, not place. I‟m involved in several different places still Kurrajong, Little Weenie Creek, Redbank Creek down in North Richmond, Bowen Mountain where I live now. And still to some extent the Blue Mountains because I‟m tracking back through my history where we actually lived, next door to what I think was the Gully. And that‟s where my grandparents lived, so the Gully‟s significant because I‟ve always thought I was part Aboriginal in a sort of an inner way. Anyway, organisations, now I suppose the big focus now is Hawkesbury Environment Network which is an umbrella group and brings in the different organisations that Eric referred to.

44 Appendices

I think mine‟s a timeline, in my own life. Pedagogical practices North Richmond for instance, is very much an urbanised version of what used to be an area like Kurrajong. And if you look at it, it‟s very unplanned, it‟s just grown, it‟s bulging at the seams, it‟s got a huge lot of really disaffected people. And so the engagement with them is going to have be quite different to just identifying plants and going and doing a bit of bush regen, and so the idea is to develop packages of engagement and I‟ve been trialling those over the last 3 years in different areas, to bring groups together. O-1-2: Aboriginal education officer, Echo Point Tourism The large circle represents country and these represent the various groups within the country. And so I‟ve worked for the country, I get a chance to deliver, have some input into various groups that are all working for the same good cause … there‟s Bush Care, we‟ve got an Aboriginal Organisation, National Parks, visitors to the place, special interest groups, environment groups, local councils, State Government groups, education, all these, they‟re all within, within the country like I say, and they overlap at different times. What I get the chance to do sometimes is just connect people, and it‟s all – I mean social justice and the environmental outcomes to me are the same, we work for those. We want a healthy community, sustainable one, I get a chance to share with people that we have a heritage of good custodianship of country, and it‟s not the short term aims that we often have to abide by these days. And so the outer circle actually is the ancestors, the people gone before us, this is us here and then the ones that come up behind us are the children. And these have to be – these are all part of our identity and they have to be taken into consideration and we do make decisions about country and that sort of thing. Pedagogical practices So I get a - lots of opportunities to share that with people and to know that we, my real theme at the moment is that, human beings fit beautifully on this planet, or can do. And that Aboriginal ancestors – we‟re lucky in Australia we‟ve got Aboriginal history that has shown us that human beings can live on the planet without trashing the place and I explain to people that‟s a really important. And one of the school teachers a few years ago alerted me to the fact that whereas my generation one before us, grew up in fear we‟re going to blow each other up with a bomb. She pointed out that the kids these days, young people often think the environment‟s going to kill us, and how tragic that? So that‟s why the stuff that we do is got to be done with hope and purpose. I work at the Aboriginal Centre at Echo Point. I get 15 minutes to cram in a real quick message, actually I don‟t even get that, I get 10 minutes, and so it‟s challenging but you do, even in that 10 minutes if you just present things like people haven‟t seen it before, you see little lights go on. I say, that we, that human beings can live in harmony with the environment. I love to overturn the idea that it was a primitive culture and I explain to people that I think what‟s happened is, that as this culture‟s been dismissed in the past because it get‟s mistaken as a primitive culture, I explain to people that it looked that way to Captain Cook when he arrived, was – he arrived in 1770 and the whole of Australia was in pristine condition pretty much then. And he‟s assumed that these people have just arrived themselves, and now we‟ve got the archaeological base, no people have been living here for 20,000 years before he arrived, and it‟s still just lived in, people need to know that. They also need to know that human beings lived beautifully with the other creatures, because in our culture we respect the other animal rights to be

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here, it‟s their home as well, it‟s not just move them out of the way, we‟re here. We have to work within their rhythms and that sort of thing, so that‟s exciting for people to reflect on. I also share with them too that, the social possibilities of how human‟s can live, where there‟s societies and like I say it‟s not a dream, this is normal life used to be. No rich and poor, no homelessness, no armies, no gaols, like I said, and then I start to broker that maybe Cook was actually looking at an advanced culture, not a primitive culture. So they‟re things for people to chew on and take back with them, but and also a message of hope, I explain that, so by working at the uni here actually, I learnt that the river‟s far cleaner than it‟s been for 30 years, which is exciting, it‟s still not safe to swim in anymore. O-3-1: Agricultural teacher at Catholic College I suppose mine‟s a little bit of a time story as well. I grew up in the Snowy Mountains on 3,000 acres and it‟s a very, very harsh piece of land. My father was one of those mountain men that used to move cattle up into the high reaches, there‟s a … hut and he passed away in 2006 and he was of the last pasturing people that used to move cattle up into the high country. But it was a world of monoculture, very much sheep destroying the earth or sheep providing wool for Australia‟s betterment. I found my way into education, as an agriculture teacher and an interesting thing is that, where I‟m at now is a Catholic School but it doesn‟t have a name beginning with Saint, like St. Marks, St. Pauls, St. Andrews or what have you. It‟s - and people don‟t recognise it as being a Catholic School because it‟s names Terra Sancta. And the model of Terra Sancta is, it‟s from the Latin is Sacred Earth. So the students are indoctrinated right from go that they‟re on sacred earth. And the college‟s philosophy is, The Way Passes Through This Land. So some Catholic Schools have, Act Justly, ours is The Way that God Passes Through This Land. Pedagogical practices I teach in agriculture to the kids, it‟s based on a lot of permaculture principles and they really gain a lot from getting their hands dirty in the garden and looking after chickens: „he‟s identified indigenous and he said, “Well what are you going to tell me about my land?” And I said, “Well come along.” And I said, “Well a whole lot of it is about respect for land, this is your place and you can make or be with the land however you want.” And apart from that, do a little bit of work, some workshops on permaculture up in the Blue Mountains, but that‟s my, my country story. O-4-2: Environmental Officer So I‟ve just recently been employed as a Catchment Officer for the Catchment Management Authority. And working on a Project for Pathway which is in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment area. To engage them to become excited about environmental issues in our – in the catchment and to get them to possibly do some on ground work, whether that be bush re-generation or … all those kind of things. Pedagogical practices But previously I worked at Druitt High School and I – they wanted to engage more young people in this program. I actually started a horticulture course for disengaged Aboriginal Youth. It‟s been very successful, we‟ve got kids that we really struggled with to get into classrooms, to get to either whether getting them into class or getting them to come to school or they‟d come to school but they wouldn‟t – they‟d just run around the corridors and get teachers to chase them and think it‟s a good game. And these kids have just made the majority of them, like 98% of them have just done a complete turnaround, they‟re engaged in doing ongoing work within the school, planting trees, and they‟re also, they‟re working with Richmond TAFE - they‟re running a course, and they‟re doing a Cert 3 in horticulture, so it‟s really good just

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to see the engagement of these young people. And also they‟re learning about their culture too and about native plants and how they were used and as all the reports go, we know there‟s a closing the gap report and things like that, that engagement with culture really improves education and health outcomes for Aboriginal people. So it‟s really, meant getting kids out of classrooms, and doing hands on activities and becoming engaged and excited about, not just the environment but about their culture as well and engagement with elders. Mid Western Sydney Focus Group M-1-3: Environmental Officer, Blacktown Council Spatial mapping of the relationship between eco-social relationships and her work in sustainability: In terms of the area that I work in it‟s very diverse in terms of the population and, also the location and the types of areas that we have in terms of rural versus urban we‟re quite highly densely populated in the centre of Blacktown, but then we go quite rural. Unfortunately that will be lost in the next ten years and they are all being developed, so, a lot of that land will be lost. So it‟s a very high growth area, we have very high areas of disadvantaged population, but we also have areas of very new developments which are people that are actually quite wealthy, so it really is a very – it balances that out in terms of the statistics on the way that people live. M-1-3 provides a very succinct overview of the peri-urban nature of eco-social relationships in Mid Western Sydney with increasing development for housing replacing rural land and the diversity of wealth and poverty between the older densely populated urban areas and the upwardly mobile young families in new developments. Pedagogical practices M-1-3‟s work incorporates the full range of sustainability education from preschool, schools, resident and community groups and a Coles community program. She sees the purpose of her sustainability education work as „behaviour change‟ and the Council runs over 30 workshops a year based on food and environmental and social sustainability. General sustainability community education programs focus on „re-skilling‟ ranging „from topics on how to make your own bread, how to make your own cheese to how to build a garden, to how to save money on energy bills‟ with breadmaking being so popular they typically have a waiting list of 80-100 people. They run five festivals a year and are currently preparing a prospectus for community groups. The Council runs preschool and school programs with an annual schools grants program, an environmental expo, regional catchment field days and kid‟s green day out. Social sustainability programs with new migrant communities include „very basic sustainability on things like, what is the rubbish bin for, what are the taps and where does the water come from to, how to grow your own food‟. The migrant groups include many people who have newly arrived from refugee camps including Sudanese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Bhutanese people. They run basic sustainability programs for these groups with a focus on food – from how to shop in a supermarket and cook the food they can buy there, to growing your own food. Food security is a significant issue with „disadvantaged groups‟ so they incorporate „community kitchens and access to fresh food and vegetables that are affordable‟.

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The Council has teamed up with other agencies to provide cooking classes and conducts their own internal training for sustainability educators. They train community sustainability leaders through the Coles program. M-6-2: freelance consulting to Councils I live in Dural which is a very sort of peri-urban with encroaching development type arrangement, and it‟s going from a very rural sort of very grass rootsy kind of food growing area to a very wealthy, you know - lawns and watering systems, and very not much concentration on sustainability in that area at all, and people are quite - not socially isolated but isolated in a community sense because they‟re wealthy and they‟ve got a huge amount of land and they‟re very successful and all these sorts of things, and that‟s the farmer with his horse getting sort of pushed out, and I‟m seeing that every day, new bits of land being. Pedagogical practices M-6-2 works as a freelance consultant conducting community workshops about organic food, soil, water based on prior horticulture degree. She is trying to secure permanent work in the sustainability area and is a current Social Ecology student. (Another person in the focus group offered M-6-2 a job!) M-3-2: agricultural teacher in a Catholic college M-3-2 expresses the same peri-urban issues that the previous two participants have raised with the added agenda of the loss of farming and food growing knowledge. … many of the students that we have are urban based, and therefore their understanding of the whole process of producing the food and in a sustainable manner, looking at the environmental and ethical issues of getting the food on the plate. It gives them a chance to explore that through agriculture, so I see agriculture as a good vehicle. Pedagogical practices In order to achieve this he links into extensive networks of other schools, commercial operations such as Castlereagh Feeds, and local community groups such as Rotary. His (place) pedagogical practice involves understanding the geological, geographical and historical characteristics of the Cumberland Plain in relation to its formation and human uses over time. He engages with the Council and White Water in tree planting and other environmental activities. M-1-5: Senior educator officer, Sydney Catchment Authority The spatial mapping of M-1-5‟s work is quite different because of the role that water plays in history, in people‟s lives, and in its movement through water supply distribution that connects people who live across the whole of Sydney to the major catchment at Warragamba Dam. …we manage all the dams and the pipelines and the canals for the water supply for all of Sydney and Wollongong, and parts of the Blue Mountains. So we‟re a very – we‟re a new organisation but we‟re also a very old organisation, as well in that pretty much the history of what we‟re about, the assets that we manage, they go back well over 100 years, and in fact, that‟s a sustainability story from the get-go because the very first supply to Sydney was the tank stream in the city and that catchment became incredibly polluted and no longer a viable water source, then there was other resources, wetlands and so forth exploited for water supply and population outgrew them and, eventually they had to develop dams and weirs on different sorts of river systems around greater Sydney, and a lot of, I suppose sustainability environmental issues associated with them.

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Pedagogical practices M-1-5‟s work involves educating primary and high school students at the interpretative centre at Warragamba Dam about the water cycle and water efficiency (primary) and catchment management issues (high school). The students come from all over Sydney and about 80-90% come from the Sydney metropolitan area. They also teach online for HSC chemistry and biology and he points out that their visitor numbers are about 7,000 but their online hits are about 20,000 per year. Their onsite pedagogies are place-based with a „Water for Life‟ exhibition and a visit to the dam and a state of the art classroom in a new visitor centre. M-1-6: Senior Education Officer, Sydney Catchment Authority M-1-6 is based in Penrith and her education responsibilities are community focussed. Pedagogical practices They offer community based conservation programs such as Streamwatch, in partnership with other agencies and have a community grants program. They have a strong focus on people who live in the rural communities in the immediate catchment area with a Rural Living handbook for those moving from urban to peri-urban or rural areas. A major project is the Sustainable Grazing program because „what‟s happening on the farms within the catchment is impacting on the water and the quality of the drinking water that we‟ve got. So, it is based on behaviour change that we‟ve got science that sits behind it and informs it. They offer 16 courses in this program, 14 of which are short (half day) courses and two are long courses run over 6-12 months. These courses are offered to both commercial farmers and hobby farmers. M-1-7: Cleanaway Waste Services Education Officer … my map shows us sort of being in the middle, like our depot is sort of … location, and then we‟re travelling out to all the different areas across Sydney metro and we‟re providing specific services to each of those different councils and we have different contractual requirements for each of those areas, as well. I‟m probably a little bit more concentrating around the inner west with some of the specific projects I do, but we do also work with Blacktown – sorry, Blacktown that was my attempt at your logo. So, we have a number of different education programs that we need to tailor for each of our customers, depending on the community and the services that we are providing in those areas. Pedagogical practices M-1-7‟s work involves school education programs with pre-schools, primary and secondary schools and community workshops related to using the services correctly, to avoid contamination. They also teach people about farming, composting, shopping correctly, to minimise waste. They use a combination of face to face with residents, educational materials, and public education strategies such as stickers on bins. M-6-1: Freelance consultant My involvement is actually is fairly organic compared to most people here, who have got a steady role. I have my own business heading called Eco … which has a little side-line of educating for environmental responsibility. And in doing that over the years I have done a lot of facilitation of workshops at Blacktown Council, at Balkham Hills Council, Hawkesbury and a few other different places. That has lessened somewhat over the years, as the councils have taken on more of their own education programs. I used to do a lot more for Blacktown council before a lot of their own staff had taken over a lot of the workshops which involved composting, worm farming, gardening and those sorts of things, attending festivals.

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Pedagogical practices M-6-1 has been involved with writing the national curriculum sustainability objectives across the different key learning areas, particularly the arts. She sees „teaching and learning about sustainability in the environment as something that is experienced, something that‟s hands-on, and that‟s why I like to work outside‟. She is interested in incorporating Aboriginal knowledge into her work: „she and I are actually at Longneck we‟re doing interpretive trail to try and introduce the kids as they walk in, because they‟ve got to walk in about 300 or 400 metres from the road; to try and introduce an understanding of the aboriginal terms for the local flora and fauna, and to ask some of her – some of her interesting things, you know, maybe like, did you know that aboriginal people used to paperbark for nappies and things like that, you know, sort of things that might stick in their brain‟. M-1-4: Sustainability Officer, Penrith Council I‟m the sustainability education officer at Penrith Council. We‟re probably quite similar in a lot of ways to Blacktown Council, but kind of different in others. Again, we‟re on the peri-urban fringe, so we‟ve got some rural areas but, also levels of development as well, probably got a bit more rural than Blacktown do. We have a growing population infrastructure issues and all those associated issues as well. We‟ve got areas of quite high disadvantage and financially well off areas as well; so, quite a diverse community. Probably not quite as culturally diverse as Blacktown would be, though. But it creates a very kind of challenging and interesting environment to work in. One of the challenges is people go, oh sustainability that‟s your department. What we‟re really trying to promote is, no sustainability‟s something that everyone should be doing and it‟s just what you should be doing as common practice - it shouldn‟t be something special, as such. Pedagogical practices M-1-4 is responsible for about 10 workers in different departments who are involved in sustainability education including a schools network with grants and funding, biodiversity, water quality, environmental health (storm water program), waste education, people looking after bushcare and landcare groups, waste education officers dealing with composting and worm farming, managing the sustainability of council facilities (sporting fields, childcare centres). They run lunch time workshops for staff eg veggie gardening, sustainable fashion (op shop shopping), activities such as mobile collection in which a chicken got donated to a family in Laos for every two mobiles collected. They run community events such as sustainability festivals which the library co-ordinates eg water photography wall; home power saving program, supporting local permaculture group. Inner Western Sydney I-1-10: Environmental educator, Parramatta Council So I-1-10 and I‟m from Parramatta Council. So this is me down the bottom. And basically, I guess the 3 parts of my life. One is obviously my council work. Second is my involvement in Guides and Scouts. And the third is my own business. So obviously my – and then they sort of all intertwine. So my council work can work with schools, work with community groups, work with - sort of with Guides and Scouts - and works obviously building internal relationships. And then Guides and Scouts works with all these. And then my business works with all these. So I guess they all – my business does marine education in schools. So it‟s environmental

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education but from a different perspective. So they all very much intertwine, make me me. Pedagogical practices Building relationships, frustrated because of short term contract work. I-6-3: Volunteer environmental and community educator I‟m actually wearing different hats and I‟ve actually worked in my heart space. I‟m very, very, very deep in environmental area because I believe that we all have one home, one planet that we share no matter what colour we are, where we come from. We all actually have one home. And I‟m also actually very passionate about environment - not only environment but the animals as well. I believe that so far and for a long time that animals actually have no voice. They‟re actually – people can just eat them, kill them or whatever, doing to them. And even actually inhabit their homes - cut down the trees and harm them and hurt them with no reasons. And I think that‟s actually – it‟s not right. So I‟m actually passionate about that animal area. What else? I‟m trying to actually start my own business because I‟ve actually been doing cooking workshops, doing workshops on sustainability and various things. … my business is called Whole System Health – it‟s not about one person but it actually start from one person. And it actually start from the heart space. I believe that if one is actually not healthy physically and mentally, then we can‟t actually step out and help our family, help our friends, help the community and leave alone the animals. So it‟s very important that one is actually happy within one‟s self and finds peace within one‟s self. Pedagogical practices See above. Also teaches Tai Chi, vegetarian cooking, etc. I actually would say that from connecting with nature. And the message I get is actually from the nature because I believe that we actually – our body – we actually have 5 elements. Basically the earth is actually our bone and our flesh and the water – our bodies actually have 75% of water. And our earth actually has 75% of water. And the air – we share – our lung is actually – we share the air, the carbon dioxide and the air with the trees, with the forest. So we are part of that 5 elements. And the other one is the sun, the heat. Our body – actually if we don‟t have heat in our body, we‟ll die. This body won‟t actually survive. So if we don‟t have the sun, then this is actually – there won‟t be any life in this world. I-1-11: Environmental educator, Auburn City Council I work with a whole bunch of different people - different types, guises, all that kind of stuff. Part of my role is environmental education and that goes towards a lot of different things - so trying to clean up our local waterways, trying to reduce energy consumption and just all the other aspects of general sustainability. I also implement hard devices - so water saving things like water tanks, solar panels, energy saving devices. And I also write a bit of policy when I get some time. Pedagogical practices Previously we‟ve done environmental education through handing out pamphlets and ads in the paper. And you don‟t get much uptake from that. Our local paper has got an 8% readership and a third of our population in our community is from a non- English speaking background. But that doesn‟t mean they don‟t understand English. So when we‟ve gone out to do different language stuff, the uptake is not necessarily there either, especially when you‟re putting it in a paper. Because – I don‟t know – it just hasn‟t worked. Anyway, so we‟ve got this specialist environmental educator in for a short time. She‟s doing a great job and she‟s re-jigging the way we address environmental education in the community. So try and do less of the work ourselves

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and link with community groups that are already doing that work and need a bit of money. Because we‟ve got the money but we‟re people poor. Once this lady goes, there‟ll be 2 people in my unit. I-1-8: Resource Recovery Education Officer I work at Bankstown Council as the resource recovery education officer, which is waste and recycling in a you beaut way. I‟ve only just sort of done my drawing looking at my career, I guess. And that‟s only because I‟m so passionate about my career. So my drawing is the blue ECC tower at the centre of it all. I‟m working with our community on waste and recycling and resource recovery. So it‟s a 3 bin system of our red, green and yellow bins. We have a 192,000 population, 62,000 households which we‟re providing a waste service for - those SUDS and MUDS – single-unit dwellings and multi-unit dwellings. 127 community languages - our 3 main cultural groups are our Arabic population, our Vietnamese and our Chinese population. The way I‟m engaging with our residential community is through planning, looking at development applications and the actual infrastructure that they‟re using for new development, developing the education programs and the resources that go with that, and doing community consultation along the way. I‟m guided by the waste hierarchy of avoid, reuse, recycle and dispose. Pedagogical practices We‟ve been able to show that through the way that we are rolling out the program, it‟s about giving feedback directly to households of bin inspections. It‟s the direct feedback of: “Well done. You‟ve gone well this week.” Or, “Oh no, we found these wrong items in your bin.” And we‟ve been able to find that we‟ve got lasting behaviour change with just that. So yeah, so Recycle Right is kind of the big baby that I‟ve been working on. Then I‟ve got links to all our industry groups - Waste Management Association, LGSA, South Western and West of Sydney Rock areas. Then I‟ve got our contractor arrangements. So as far as service provision, we work with VITA, Clean Away, Busy, Wellco. And Council also owns and operates a tip – Kelso Landfill. And then the whole other side of my job is contract management, facilitation of sessions. So I go out and do presentations to community groups, including Bankstown TAFE to some of their communities there. Program development – I consider myself a bit of a communications specialist. And then our event management – so we‟re running events that deal with electronic waste, chemicals, national recycling week, Clean Up Australia Day, compost and mulch giveaways. And then we‟ve got other programs – the hazardous waste, clothing, food, sharps, and mattresses. So massive job but I love it and I‟m passionate about it. I-7-2: Owner/Director, Childcare centre I‟m a director and the owner for 2 childcare centres in Auburn area, which is Love & Care Childcare Centre and Kids‟ Early Education. I‟m not a very creative person but it‟s called Love & Care so that‟s why I drew the love heart in the middle. My husband is my inspiration after God obviously. He‟s my support in everything that I do in my life and he‟s always there for me. We actually 3 childcare centres. We‟ve got actually nine different languages in our service, the children all are kids from non-English background. And there‟s a lot of them with autism and special need children at the moment in our services, which is really hard for the staff and for us. So attending a lot of professional development. Pedagogical practices Sustainability is a big issue in children‟s services at the moment. We just started this year because I-7-1 dragged me to a course that we did together about sustainability.

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And we did actually a digital story, me and her. And everyone had their own way. And I did it on global warming and it‟s on YouTube actually. And it was excellent to see the different things happening in the world. So I was really interested in sustainability and the issues that are happening around us. We organised a worm farm. I-7-1 was – she had the big hand in organising things because I was obviously … organised a worm farm for the children. We had actually a small garden for the service. We did the bins – the 3 type of bins that we used for the kids for different type of recycling things that we used. We‟re using a lot of – on the internet facilities, so it helps the sustainability. We are dealing with Energy Australia too to get some information for the children in how to save electricity and water. And we‟re dealing through Auburn Council with the same things. I was interested in attending this course actually, or this project, just to see how can we get more ideas about sustainability. And how can we pass it to the parents and to the children from a young age because whatever you teach them from young age, they going to grow according to that. I do speak for disadvantages and we do have disadvantages in our services. So I am a person and I do help out of our community in organising different issues. So basically as one of our aims to how we‟re going to educate, it was mainly educating the families. And we thought about how are we going to get to the families – is through the children. And so by bringing sustainable practices within our services, then those children will go home and follow through at home by saying, “Mum, we don‟t need that – the bedroom light on,” and so forth. And talking about those sort of things. And they‟re all learning now because of the introduction to the recycling bins – about reducing, reusing and recycling. I-7-1: Owner/Director, Childcare Centre I‟ll start off with my family on this side. This is my home and this is where I feel comfortable and relaxed and time out. So then my 3 children – I‟ve got 3 girls. And basically they‟re in tutoring, so we‟re networking through their tutoring. I‟m also a consultant – a childcare consultant and help childcare services open even family day care services. I also am the delegate of the OSTAG team because of my children. Also the mosque is another place because my belief is Islam and so the mosque is part of our family and life. The gym as well - being healthy and eating healthy. Now started a 6 week challenge with boot camp and it‟s doing its bit. I‟m going out more. I think the more we‟re going into - learning about sustainable practices and having to enjoy outdoors more. And that‟s why I‟ve got the sky up there – and getting some vitamin D through the sun – has been one of those key focuses that I‟ve changed in my life. Because of a lot of it is technology and my children are on their iPods and iPads and any other i-things. Pedagogical practices I do have 3 childcare services - one at Busby, one at Guildford and one in Granville area. Now, they‟re 3 locations and in saying that, in those 3 different places there are children from different cultures. The main – in Busby, main cultures and languages spoken is English and Anglo-Australian. However, all the programs are very much similar. The main language in Guildford would be Arabic and Indian. And in Granville, it‟s Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish and African. We involve the children in excursions and going out. … we actually get everyone to value and respect other people‟s cultures and a very strong Aboriginal awareness. And we have – as she was talking about – SDN who are an inclusion support. So we have a lot of children with disabilities as well in our services. And we actually get them out and perform in festivals. And they‟ll be performing on 1st of November which is the language and

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literacy. They‟ve also already been at the multicultural [festival] – they did a multicultural dance, 4 different languages. And so we just – that‟s basically what we do. And then we‟ve got people that come into our service, like the local community, like the ambulance, fire brigade, police, nurse, the local doctors. I mean they all influence what goes on in life. I mean children, I believe, learn through not just the interactions they have with people but also the environment. So all of that has been put in. We did do a course, a Living Green course, together and a project on sustainable practices. And we all had to do our own project and set up our own policy on what our thoughts and our values and philosophies. And what inspired me about it – I don‟t know much about climate change. I really didn‟t know much about climate change. But yeah, when I did it, it opened my eyes to a lot of other new things. So now I‟ve got a new philosophy altogether now. We‟ve introduced, as she was saying, the recycling bins, a worm farm. This is our compost bin. We also did a fruit and veggie garden that children can taste – they grow it themselves and they eat from it as well. And they‟re going home and taking those practices back and saying, „Mum, we should be doing recycling. We should be doing composting‟. And they‟re enjoying the worms. Yeah, we went to Auburn Botanical Garden and we showed them how the ducks and the rubbish in the duck‟s river – those kind of things they we‟re basically doing. We‟re also one of the – we were in the New South Wales Children – the finalist in the New South Wales Children‟s Week for best cultural program, best director and best weekly program. And I think I‟ve covered all that I do. I-7-3: Early childhood education worker (same story as I-7-1 and I-7-2) I-1-8: Environmental education, Bankstown Council I work at Bankstown Council with I-1-9, in a different department. I work in the environment and education team as part of the sustainable development unit. Going back, everyone was talking about their history and where they‟re from and their past, I guess. I grew up the Blue Mountains and I‟ve always had a passion for nature and protecting nature, the bush. And I believe that that should be there forever and for everyone to enjoy. So that‟s my passion for the environment. And then my last position, I worked at Ashfield Council on a project called the GreenWay Sustainability Project which was a partnership between 4 councils. So there was Leichhardt, Canterbury, Marrickville and Ashfield Council. And we had a number of sustainability projects to do over 3 years, funded by the state government. And one of the projects I worked on was a schools project with local primary schools. And back to what you were saying about education, working with kids and education centres – I now believe, hence why I‟m in this role, that is really, really vital to work with children, to get environmental messages across early on. Because when you‟re older and working with adults, it‟s a lot harder to convince people- Pedagogical practices Actually in my last position, I, with a working group of people from other councils, state government, community and a number of different people – we worked together to develop a resource called GreenWay Sustainability Program. Anyway, it‟s been adapted by the Department of Education and Training to be used as a professional teacher‟s developing tool. They‟ve changed the name now. I think it‟s – if you look up …, it‟s called - … credited. I think it‟s called Using Your Local Environment as an Outdoor Classroom, Connecting Children to Their Local Environment. Basically getting teachers and students out of the classroom and learning in the outdoors. And not getting on a bus and going a few hours away but exploring what‟s

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in your schoolyard or what‟s down the road, what‟s in your backyard. Bankstown people say to me, “Bankstown is so urban‟ and you‟ve got the Georges River and some of the beautiful outdoor areas – I‟m amazed. And this morning I actually did a presentation for a school group from the Georges River Grammar School and I really tried to push to them some of the beautiful natural spaces in Bankstown to go out and explore. Because often I think people go to the Royal National Park or Kuringi or the Blue Mountains and sometimes you‟re just looking at what‟s in your backyard. And with that, I think then they make more of a connection with their environment because they see it‟s in their backyard and they think, „It‟s mine and I‟m part of this‟. It‟s kind of that stewardship and they feel they want to look after it and it‟s kind of that holistic – I guess that holistic cycle or process. That‟s why I think getting children connected with their local environment at a young age – getting them – and the other thing is you‟re getting them out and about. Not just talking in the classroom or looking at a whiteboard. But getting out and exploring and touching and feeling and that real authentic learning is really, really important. And knowing where food comes from and where birds live and when you throw your rubbish on the ground, where does it end up. And looking at the whole cycle and the whole system rather than reading about it, is one thing. And even working within Council and you‟re talking about the area that you work in. But a lot of people have probably never been out to some of these – the Georges River National Park and … Creek and some of these other fantastic places. And I don‟t think you get the true feel for the area until you get out there and do that .

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Appendix 4: Indepth Analysis of Individual Story Maps OUTER WEST PARTICIPANTS Name Central image Icons & connections Analysis O-2-2 Earthcare centre with River on the south west The urban environment is not connected to the people around Western Sydney in the north west in black Earthcare centre and is pictured in black. Possibly building encircled by Globe in the North east seen as a destructive force on the environment greenery and bush. small houses in the south at Richmond UWS is also written Red web things chaos as central. A field in Black arrow connections double headed so going in both the centre directions Acronyms; ATA/ PDR?A; RCE; HH; HRN; UWS; RGB team O-4-2 Not done as running late O-1-2 Central circle in Doesn‟t have icons but lists these groups- from centre to periphery Interesting that concentric circles are bigger and yellow with no 1.Local councils; 2. Special Interest Groups Migrants and art closer to the centre for those groups that have more writing in this. Solid groups; 3. Visitors; 4. National Parks and Wildlife; 5. State power. This image shows relationships between on the ring. Three Officers Educational Institutions, schools UWS etc.; 6. aboriginal groups bushcare and NPWS but concentric circles Environmental groups; 7. Bushcare; 8. Aboriginal Organisation environmental groups are located opposite to this embracing other There is a definite centre but connections are made through and educational institutions are the furthest away smaller circles in overlapping circles. The overlapping circles are not solid as if from everything various colours these were temporary constructions in a universe that is infinite. In these circles are the names of the organisations that have something stake holding in country O-3-1 People in the centre Icons are a cross, the way passes through this land and a green The small clump of people being central to this with two chickens path or river. A truck? Or outdoor classroom on wheels, a globe image are integrated with the chickens and the grass and grass and trees and the people and chickens. Connections are made by arrows in so separation is not desired. There seems to be a green. Seems to be more of a process going around in a circle than question of the lone person…what will you do? linear. People linked to permaculture to a singular person with a What is your role. There is a linking to global question mark to a blackboard on wheels linked to a globe linked environmental concerns. Things are linked but still to Dry plains linked to the river linked to the Blue Mountains and very separate. The challenge here seems to be to permaculture again link disparate aspects of our world so the work can be more effective and integrated O-4-1 Hawkesbury River is Icons are Mount Tomah and Mount Wilson and The Macdonald Lots of action in the areas. Bush regen. is central Valley and Wisemans Ferry. These are pictured north of the river. concentrated mostly between the Grose River and

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South of the river is Hawkesbury bushcare and Hawkesbury the Colo River and South side of the Nepean. community nursery and HIMAG (Hawkesbury, Indian Myna Seems to be very much on the ground and practice Action Group). Black crosses are scattered across the map to oriented. No sense of connections between the areas indicate where there are groups operating and looking after the and people but the people seem to be happy doing environment. There are also smiley faces in red this kind of work. Connections are made by the rivers running off the central river. These are Colo River, Webbs Creek, Redbank Creek, Currency creek, Grose River and Macdonald River O-2-1 Hawkesbury Harvest Words surround the HH tree central image these are Hawkesbury Harvest‟s relationship with the Sydney with a central tree Empower; Educate; Activate; Advise; Research; Advocate; basin is what is understood as the „local‟. pictured Then further out from the centre are: Schools, schools harvest; Landscape is defined by the river system (green Agriculture Reference Group; HEN; OHN (Office of Hawkesbury road) that created the basin (mountain range in Nepean). background), sustains it and is now where Sydney The urban environment is coloured grey and is far away from the exists. The double-headed arrow indicates it is Hawkesbury harvest. about dialogue with the city initiated by the country The Peri urban (LGA‟s, Residents) sites between the HH and the in Sydney‟s backyard. The dialogue is about Farm Urban (govt, consumers, Industry, developers) Gate Trail and markets as the most visible Farmers, community and the local is written beside the HH tree at experiential texts Harvest has created. the centre of the story map Connections are made by a green road or river? And a double headed arrow connection Hawkesbury Harvest with the Urban environment. A pink chain links UWS with Hawkesbury Harvest. A Mountain range is in the background O-2-3 Central line is a one The icons are circles in green 4, orange 5, purple 6, yellow 1. This is a personal story time line that shows many way arrow in red and activities in life but that is distinct from the current grey. Like a cliff face Inside these are written words such as Redbank, Rivo Kija, Bmts, retirement period. In this portioned off section there uni vetsci, CSIRO, School, Illawarra, Key Role Models, Child are empty circles indicating a difficulty in getting rearing, TAFE CLM, Plant Soc., ACF/ AABR and People, people involved in potential projects. Considering Ecosystems and HRN HRN was her central concern it is interesting to note that these are very small and located off to one Striking is the word Retirement in large blue letters at the base of side also with empty circles. the story map Connection is by the red central arrow which seems to connect the past with many circles and groups with the present retirement phase of O-2-3‟s life which has less circles and some which are

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empty. O-1-1 The Hawkesbury 3 waratahs are prominently displayed in red and have planting, art Schools are prominent in O-1-1‟s image. Strong River, the word and school next to these. connections with roads linking however Mount TAFE, Schools, Lithgow is on the top left and has smoke pollution spilling from Tomah is way up on top of the hill away from any Stories chimneys action of daily routine like schools. The roads are Mount Tomah is in the top right corner directly opposite Lithgow places which bring people to him but these school with happy people with the words „it‟s a frog‟ and a leader saying are not really depicted as connected to each other. „this way‟ Walks and Tbars is written under this Beneath this is The Hawkesbury area with school and workshops written. A road connects Mount Tomah and the Hawkesbury. Aboriginal Groups as listed under the Hawkesbury area. The River is connecting the two sides of the mountains and connecting the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury area. A circular road links the upper mountains plateau with the two sides of the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. Schools are a linking theme. Lithgow and the Blue Mountains are connected by the road

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MID WEST PARTICIPANTS Name Central image Icons & connections Analysis M-1-4 Box with five 1.PCC central box. Under this is council facilities, solar & Once again the council is at the centre of the frame people in this, two water, lighting upgrades, water, Childcare centre; Internal, indicating an institutional approach. State and Federal on one side and brown paper bag, clothing drive, mobile muster Oxfam, Government is highly visible in the colour pink while the three on the other. educators working group, official corp.ED., diversity community section even though it is quite large is located in This is Penrith City reference group the bottom left corner and is barely visible in grey. The Council. A line is 2.two people representing state and federal government. community sector is linked to its three sections but is not under the box all of LFHW written under the two people. linked to other aspects of the council work like schools, this is in brown 3.Schools network, sustainable times, emails childcare centres, government, and business. The state and 4.Sustainability issues in words: Climate change, food federal government dominate the top of the page in bright security, urban growth, population up, biodiversity, pink over the council who must fit into this framework. consumption, disadvantage There is no link back to Council from community. The work 5.Uws, RCE, student placements, LFHW frame seems crammed with activities and it feels as if these 6.WSEEN, other councils, DET lists of things to do or influences mean not many are able to 7.Tall buildings representing business, EUA, other be covered in depth. sustainability, brown paper bag 8.3 sets of pairs of people representing community groups Community events Community workshops; LFHW, greenbins, broad ED, blog, website, Werrington Creek, energy info sessions, Photo comp, Carpool, new resident info night Community Groups; susty street, permaculture SYD West, sustainable gardening festival Lines coming out from the central brown box and in the bottom corner arrows connecting community groups, events and workshops M-1-3 The words in pink Words radiating out from the centre. Those that are larger Sustainability and education surround the Blacktown area Blacktown LGA are Education, CALD, Sustainability and Behaviour indicating that these are two concepts that are scaffolds to Change. Education and behaviour changed are linked with the way this educator does her work. However the focus brown arrows in both directions. Education is linked to seems to be centralised in the council, so the institution is preschools. Surrounding Blacktown LGA which is the the place to come and experience education and sustainable centre icon are the words schools, residents, staff, CALD, practice, rather than the community environment being the

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preschools, urban, high growth area, high areas of place. In other words a you come to us approach rather than disadvantage, new developments, urban, rural, other a we will come to you approach. There seems to be a top councils and external groups/ agencies. Education down approach evident in the term behaviour change, which underpins all of this central grouping of words. Up the top indicates external forces to change social behaviour rather of the frame is sustainability with links to food, social and than seek change drawn from ideas circulating within the environmental. There is a list in the right corner of what community itself. A focus on delivery rather than facilitation programs I do and these are: and involvement. A strong relationship between education School grants program; Sustainable living workshops; and behaviour change located at bottom of the page and Enviro expo; Preschool programs; Staff enviro programs; underpinning the philosophy of the council Community group workshops; RCFD – field days; Community gardens; CALD education program; Sustainable living calendar; Sustainable events; Train the trainer. Lines radiating out from the central word and then other lines connecting to show relationships to other words M-1-7 Garbage truck on a Garbage bins are prominent with the three different The garbage truck goes to the peoples and businesses places road coloured lids yellow, green and red. In the top of the frame which is contrasted sharply to some of the other story maps there is a sky scrapper with the word MUDS next to this in Outer district LGA. There are many connections via the and next to this SUDS with two urban houses. In the lower roads and these have been grouped into particular left hand corner there are several grey roads and circles, the communities. It feels like the work of picking up refuse is main one with the HILLS written in this referring to The never complete, symbolised in the road that twists off into Hills District in Baulkham Hills. On the right hand side the distance. Interestingly there are no trees or bush there are three smaller hubs of communities with bins. The landscapes, gardens or yards in the image so there is a lower right hand corner image only has one bin with a green disconnect between where the refuse goes after it is lid. collected. There is no recycle station pictured. The main road is central and is connected to smaller urban roads and cul de sacs where people live in communities M-1-6 Money is an image Trees are prominent with three taking up 2/3 of the page. This image is showing the multiple uses of the river alongside a heart. There is a dam beneath the trees and a smaller creek including play and recreation for families, food and farmers The river is the running through the trees. People, work/farming, family and needs all colliding. The problem with cow poo being central image and money were represented. The word CHANGE is in capitals leeched into the ground is symbolised as being problematic. runs from the top of and in bright pink is above the table. There is a fence The path linking all of these aspects runs through the natural the page to the partitioning off the cows with cow paddys and rain falling. bushland, the farmers paddock and back to the table shows bottom in the centre A fence runs from the cows in the paddocks in the top left that humans all impact on these aspects and have a stake in

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of the frame hand corner all the way around past the kitchen table and looking after these but that these are not always seen as back to the cows. The river is also seen as the principal being related as these elements are kept distinct from each connector other. M-6-2 Central image are Icons are rows of neat green plants, a green field with a cow There is a definite attempt to link human consumption at the houses community and three people with the cow, a basket filled with fresh shops with an alternative approach to growing your own and one large house. produce, a round no dig garden, a potted plant, a group of food. The farm is linked by road to the shop where there is a Open books are at eight people listening to a larger person with a face and a black cross on top of this. There seems to be the farmer style the top of the frame speech bubble which is empty, two cars driving on the road, growing, the backyard alternate growing of vegetables, the four open books road and the shops and the community away from the shops. The road is the connector linking community to Although the road is the connector it is also the problem in shopping and the green fields with cows and plants growing this image as it separates the farm from the shop and the community from the place of buying their produce. It seems ridiculous that the food is produced near the people and yet they need to go to the shop far away to purchase this. There seems to be a desire to teach alternative ways by the educator but the empty bubble symbolises not knowing what to say or do to be effective in this. M-1-5 The Warragamba The cloud is dominating perhaps as it is the source of water, Although the clock is small and seemingly insignificant, the dam and the road which is a strong presence in this image. There is a red message seems to be that if the run off continues that it is leading to this building which has three people walking away from this only a matter of time before this has a disastrous effect on and below is a model of the water cycle. People seem to be the dam. People are a primary concern for this participant learning about this. There is another red building which and teaching or educating seems to be very important. Once looks like a demountable structure perhaps for construction again however the urban or semi urban environment is of the damn site as there are also two trucks going separate from the central concern of the educator backwards and forth to the damn. The houses of residents seem to be away from the dam itself. There is a very small clock in the top right hand corner. Near this is a cow and run off from the animal into the water supply The road is the connecting feature in this image. Lightning bolts are also connected to the cloud and possible electricity generators M-3-2 Cow in a paddock A series of boxes in different colours. Three green boxes in The relationships stem from the ag plot with the cow in the with a red fence the top left hand corner one with secondary schools, centre. Interestingly the environment committee and trees around this Cumberland region, the other network, an orange box in the are the only words that are not boxed. This map is top right hand corner with the words Glenmore Park dominated by the social response to sustainability and the

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primary school and a pink box in the bottom right hand environment is over the other side of the river. Secondary corner saying rotary exchange west, sponsors, art4ag schools dominate the frame as this is the biggest and where competition, Cfeeds. There is a blue river underneath these most of the networks arise from. No connections to food or boxes and on the other side is the words in red environment plate or other uses of beef cattle. Links to community committee and trees in pink members that are not part of schools are not evident. Connected by pink arrows in both directions. The river is underneath the whole structure M-6-1 The words teaching Visual icons of compost, a stack of three books with a black Separate areas of existence and work that are all related but in red, learning in arrow to the word outside, mangrove wetlands, the not well connected….rather connected loosely. Every single black and Cumberland plain, a blue tongue lizard with the words icon relates to the outside world and experiencing the Experiencing in aboriginal knowledge natural environment in a physical sense. For example green Connected by shading of pastels over the pictures, no learning is most effective when done outside, two people are arrows but all images surround the central concept clearly pictured walking on a bush track in the Cumberland plain, two others sitting by the mangroves. The challenges are no cohesive structure to get these things done or connected even though there is knowledge about each individual area. INNER WEST PARTICIPANTS Name Central image Icons & connections Analysis I-6-4 My home in a Not many colours used mainly dark blue and green with a little brown The image radiates outwards similar to I-7-2 in small ellipse in Main icons are a school vege garden, a high school, the local shops, a the group. There are connections amongst some blue texta community garden, a herb garden park of the activities but the central organising From my home words directly under this are: 1)office business with principal is the home and the business. There are links to High schools, penno, workshops, TTA partnership, PD+; not many links between the activities except for 2)education for sustainability links to A2 E2 committee; 3)envirodoc the transition Epping section. This is where more Links from the My home central image are: community involvement is indicated with people 1. local shops, carpark, Community garden; 2) Uniting church Epping making Kilns and attending workshops and Community Hub, ethnic groups 3)Spiritual community, keep cups, retreats; attending a community garden. 4) Family, granddaughters, elderly mother; 5) Aries; 6) Primary ethics, There seems to be a disconnect between the school vege garden, ME and TEpping My home and the Transition Epping where they On its own in the right corner is Transition Epping with links to; Local appear at first to be linked but on closer fairs; Social activities; bushwalks; Workshops; Kilm nights; Solar panels; inspection they are not. The challenge will be to Links to uniting church link the business side of the image with the Transition Epping aspect. I-7-2 Love heart Boxes with words placed inside these and of various colours Embedded in local community concerns and containing the Auburn council; Local community bus, dentist, doctor; Brighter futures; giving much to the community. The focus in

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Love and Care CCMS & Centrelink; SDN children‟s services; Cancer council; DEC‟s; about giving out from the heart and perhaps Director and Kids early education preschool; Contin support; Eye screening; MEEF; spreading in many directions. Many links and a authorised Network directors meeting; Auburn mosque; Paint Auburn Read; plethora of knowledge and networks. No links supervisor 1996 Sustainability group project; ABN aprentership; Early ED.; Transition to happening between these networks seems to Husband school meeting and group; Networking, Palm Childcare, Busbee, Rawson indicate that the educator works very diligently road pre-School; Local public and private schools; Hubworks; Auburn but is exhausted from keeping these links going. hospital. Challenge is to connect some of these network All connections are made with arrows to words in boxes or ellipses up together. going in an outward direction. Some build on to each other

I-7-1 No one central Rich filled with icons. Three preschools under rainbows, Busby The community is the environment in which this image but the childcare, Rawson road Long Day care and Palm Childcare educator finds herself I and she is deeply central Busby Childcare is linked to local doctors embedded in the actions and experiences of her organising DECS; Local council; Energy saving solo power; Local dentist, digital story environment spiritually, practically, socially, principal is the sustainable practices, living green course project, main language Anglo emotionally. This frame is an environment in rainbow and aust English, Arabic, Chinese. itself. Icons cannot really be separated as they all colour and Rawson Road Childcare is linked to: have a relationship with place indicated by the childcare Ambulance; SDN inclusion support; Auburn botanical gardens and rainbows, the rainwater and the trees. There is a Aboriginal awareness; Local schools; Worm farms multicultural Granville strong desire by the educator to be involved and centre, fruit and vege garden, main languages Arabic and Indian, other early learn as much as she can with her embeddedness childhood services. and community as a driving force to motivate Palm Childcare is linked to: her to do this. There is green beneath each Fire brigade, Police, fund raising charity, Paint Auburn read language and childcare centre indicating this is the place literacy program, best cultural program, best director, best weekly program, where growth and experiences will occur for her. finalist for children‟s week 2012, parent/family, MEFF multicultural dance, There is a wealth of knowledge about culture compost bins, local council, centre support, main language Arabic, Turkish, and language symbolised here. Although this is African, Vietnamese. an integrated social and environmental story map My home Love heart with a family house in it is linked to : Garage one challenge may be that there is so many sale, member of acor travel and dining, fem gym bootcamp, mosque, things going on and perhaps not enough support. tutoring, consultant, oz tag delegate, my parents beliefs, customs However one area is problematic and that is experiences, selective Malek Fahed Islamic school. there are few links to centralised bodies that may  The sun in the top right hand corner linked to cancer council be able to support the growing work here. Not  Blue clouds with rain falling on all the images and words sure if this is needed but comes through in the  Trees at the bottom left hand corner of the frame imagery  Compost bin at the base of the frame with reduce, reuse, recycle icons

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 My name in Arabic Connections are made through placement of icons near each other, the use of coloured rainbows and bright colours also links concepts For example the red for the heart symbolising passion and salience of what is important. The whole frame is constructed like a living community ecosystem with the sun and rain up the top, the trees and the ground down the bottom and humans living in communities between heaven and earth. Connections are also sometimes made with lines emanating from an icon I-1-8 The central The icons in the image are arranged in six sections. These are: At the centre is the bureaucracy of the image in the 1. Recycle right in large yellow writing and then because it is the right Bankstown city council. There are many services Bankstown thing to do, 6 awards, government, community, industry offered however communities seem to be a City Council 2. Waste Hierarchy with a pyramid with the words from top to bottom number or distant from the work that is done. building. This avoid, reuse, recycle, dispose The blocks that are used to separate the various dominates the 3. Events, ewaste, chemical, NRW, CUAD, compost/mulch/ CAW. tasks indicate aspects of work to be achieved whole frame mattresses, litter, sharps, food, clothing, hazards waste, program rather than integrated. It may also indicate the development, contract management, communication specialist, structural environment of the cityscape that this facilitation and education educator in operating in. if the shape of the 4. LG ACT (NSW), WARR strategy (EPA OEH), resource recovery building that she is working in is considered the strategy (BCC) shape of her image mirrors this to a large degree. 5. Advisory work, NSW WMAA, LGSA, SSROC, WSROC, SITA This building is also right in the heart of cleanaway, visy, soilco, kelso and school, community groups + NESB Bankstown but its walls seem to build barriers comms = facilitation rather than facilitate community engagement. 6. Planning Infrastructure, education, resources, consultation, SUD, MUD This image appears to advocate a top down 3 main groups Arabic, Vietnamese, Chinese, 127 languages approach as it suggests to recycle right as it is Instead of connections there are sectors with very distinct boundaries of the right thing to do. No links between services different sizes. There are six sections and groups seen as statistics. I-6-3 In the centre Hearts of differing colour and words. Larger hearts and smaller hearts. A Everything is connected to the heart. The are the words total of 18 hearts on the page educator comes from a very whole systems “custodian of Words coming out of the hearts or linked to these are in order of most approach that is grounded by her connection to the land we links: land as the central principal. The map is a share” 1. Community, meat free stall, be the change, party, lamyong, food, farmers, personal story line that details her work in the TP, The Hills centre for mental health Fri, Earthcare centre, cultivate, and community. It also includes her religious beliefs. hearts coming from this large heart were: land and animals, local Although the connections are multifaceted there residents, PCC, Pcan are many repeated concepts and ideas and these 2. Healing - Educator facilitator with links to mother, wife, daughter, are scattered. Challenges would be to centralise

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grandma, sister, friend, custodian of the land. With links to smaller hearts the concepts and articulate these in a more of T & M, the Hills Clinic, volunteer, community heart succinct way so that they could reach a larger 3. Nature, water, space, land, tree. With links to cultivate, garden (home), audience. However concepts of land as central to bush walk, permaculture west, permabliss with link to education heart her mission and purpose indicate a very different 4. Family Friend with links to pet, 5 elements, animals, NT, trainings, outlook to more westernised conceptions of Buddhism with links to heart whole system health place and being environment 5. Whole system health BIZ with links to massage, cooking, Thai Chi with links to space for self 6. Education teach Buddhism, moral + values to kids and adults wed + thurs, workshops 7. A voice for animals, vege gardening, meat free living These were in the corners of the frame opposed to each other: 1st said Biz lampe berger, massage, gardening for health horticulture therapy, thai chi whole system health, cooking vegetarian for inner peace, 2nd one said: calander Oct 13-14 rose garden, one million women, love food hate waste, vege cooking and health care Connections are everywhere and multifaceted. Hearts and lines are used as ways to connect similar ideas or indicate relationship I-1-10 Interlocking Main icons in the four corners of the page are; The Me icon is at the bottom left hand corner colourful  Water splash into and is cut off by a black squiggly line around the arrows that  Me image. There are also black lines to the rest of span across the  Council buildings the page and one from Me to the Guides and page in a  Guides and Scouts Scouts which cuts the page in half. diagonal from Other icons are words that are linked by large arrows such as There seems to be a desire here to form and top left to School communities. ABC 123, unofficially, teenagers, primary schools build connections even if they are not solid. The bottom right. Preschools toddlers and parents lines are wavy and water like. The black links Also a black NGOs Refugees, community groups CALD and a long orange dotted seem to be more solid and the guides although is line splitting arrow with words saying slowly building from the council building sidelines to the top right of the page is where the page from Internal relationships from the council building and the guides and scouts. much of the movement of the blue wavy lines bottom left to There is many blue large arrows coming from the guides and scouts to radiate from. This is perhaps where the educator top right into all other aspects of the image. started her interest in sustainability and two Various arrows linking icons in each corner of the frame connectedness with the environment. So many arrows while directed offers a sense of confusion of direction and the broken arrow suggests

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relationships with NGOS CALD and community are difficult to sustain. I-1-8 In big green Mostly words but one blue star and one tree with grass underneath opposite Education is seen as a key in underpinning letters is each other in the corners of the frame. Also dollar signs and people at aspects of change in this image. There seems to environment + opposite diagonal corners of the frame be some really interesting directions that this education and Ideas are arranged around the central image with the words being: educator in exploring and these are coming out using your 1. Corporate sustainability, workshops, presentations, water, energy, of education and environment instead of a local transport, ws carpool council institution according to the image. This environment as 2. CALD community Arabic, vientnamese seems to be a delivery model that seeks to an outdoor 3. Schools, childcare, tertiary education, tours, workshops, resources, venture out into the community. However still classroom capacilty building the links are only going one way and not connecting 4. Business connected to each other. For example the children to their 5. Community and council events homegrown photo and gardens community and council events are not linked in environment competition, what people love most about living in Bankstown, food, with community which begs the question if this sustainability, national tree day, clean up days, Duck river is genuinely working like this or whether this is 6. Env and sustainability networks what he educator perceives to be the case. In 7. Community other words how engaged are the community in 8. Community groups, villawood community garden, chester hill edible reality. garden 9. Volunteer groups, need to connect with Also just in a blob under the central image is greenway, observatory hill, DET accredited professional teachers program and also sustainability and environmental protection The blue star is accompanied by Passion for education, connect with people and the environment Arrows emanating outwards in various colours connecting words to the central image I-1-11 Solar panels The icons are in the top left quadrant a family of six or perhaps Black seems to be an important colour. The book and a sun with community members with shovels ready to garden. I-1-11 is pictured here is in black that my symbolise mystery or not a black open in black. Then in the lower left quadrant is a large building in orange with a knowing what to do or how to go about teaching book large storm cloud over the roof. Then in the lower right quadrant is a large or learning. I-1-11 has pictured himself in black purple energy electricity plant spewing out clouds of pollution. Three as well which may be linked to the knowledge houses receive electricity from the plant. In the top right quadrant there is a he wishes to impart, the wisdom. It could also bush landscape with a river dividing the two sides and a large black hole represent what he does not yet know or the with brown. This might indicate pollution form the river difficulties experienced in engaging community.

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The images are not connected by arrows or lines but seem to be The black in the river I think may symbolise the arranged in four quadrants start of pollution. What is interesting here is that he seems to identify the problems of the solar being the sole provider of electricity. The sun as the provider of electricity seems to be a desired solution but could also represent his desire to shed illumination on environmental issues and bring light to his own knowledge base. The disconnect between the four quadrants indicates that connections are not being made to the significant issues that he sees. I-7-3 Oval with the Four houses drawn around the central image. Otherwise words Similar to other daycare educators as this is words Love Inside the house words are: energy emanating outward to the community. and Care Kids 1. Local school The community is the central focus but there is early education, 2. Preschool linked to involve with the community, moved to child care as little connection between the organisations that Network and I really enjoyed working with children the educator is using. The words in the houses LDC preschool 3. Love and Care Long Day care, Welfare sector, voluntary, enjoy helping seem more important so schools, preschools, the needy people love and care LDC and the welfare sector are Words around the central image are: highlighted. There is a challenge to seek help Acceptance; Partnership with other LDC preschool with local; with the aim of educating parents and this seems Multicultural; Eye screening visit; SDN; Worm farm in childcare; Auburn to be the driving force behind the involvement in council; Library; Recycle; Library; Dental visit; Our big aim is to educate sustainability education. our parents and family about sustainability in Auburn area through the children; Lead by example. Arrows moving outwards from the central image

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