Earthwatch Institute: 2023 Finalist – Thriving environment
Earthwatch Institute is a finalist for an Industry Leader award in the Premier's Sustainability Awards 2023 – Thriving environment category. Earthwatch Australia’s Kids Teaching Kids Distinctive Areas and Landscapes (DAL) program works with 1,121 students and teachers across the Bass Coast, Bellarine Peninsula, Macedon Ranges, and the Surf Coast. It promotes environmental behaviour change and sustainability action projects that protect the environment and environmentally and culturally significant spaces.
Funded by the Victorian State Government, DAL Capital Grants Program, the program worked with more than 50 local environmental stakeholders to provide 90-plus schools with immersive teaching and learning. The program strengthened community understanding of DAL policy domains including:
- Aboriginal cultural heritage
- environment and biodiversity
- landscapes
- environmental risks and resilience
- water quality
- tourism
- natural resources.
Students are brought together through field-based experiential learning and networking at regional conferences to present environmental peer-teaching workshops and do citizen science, championing 129 environmental action projects across regional Victoria.
