Environmental change and management

Challenges of an urban wetland: Students will examine the pressures of a highly urbanised wetland ecosystem

Monday - Friday, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm

Sydney Olympic Park Education Centre, Bicentennial Park

$625 per class of up to 30 students

4 hours

Bus drop-off area and all-day bus parking in P10f

2024 Education Bookings Closed

Thank you for your support, we are fully booked for Terms 1 and 2, 2024.  We will no longer be delivering school excursion programs due to changes in our organisation.

About the excursion

Take your year 9 and 10 students into the largest stand of mangroves on the Parramatta River to assess the pressures of a highly urbanised wetland ecosystem at Sydney Olympic Park. This hands-on field trip utilises a range of geographic skills, fieldwork techniques and spatial technologies (a GIS system) to assist students in understanding environmental processes and interconnections in a coastal wetland ecosystem.

Students will examine a range of water quality issues including pollutant types and point sources of pollution that have an impact on the protected wetlands that they enter. Students will observe first-hand the adaptive management strategies that assist in reducing the impact of water pollution on wetland environments. They will also evaluate current management strategies and discuss the development of innovative new strategies to improve water quality and the health of this protected coastal wetland ecosystem.

Activities include

  • Using a Geographic Information System to spatially represent a range of changes that have occurred at Sydney Olympic Park over time
  • Using scientific equipment to conduct abiotic testing of the mangrove wetlands to determine how well they are functioning in this highly changed environment
  • Complete a transect of the mangrove wetlands to determine the biophysical processes occurring in this environment
  • Discover and review the management practices employed in this environment as a result of environmental change
     

Syllabus information and learning outcomes

  • Stage 5 Environmental Change and Management
  • GE5-2, GE5-3, GE5-4, GE5-5, GE5-7, GE5-8

Key inquiry questions

  • How do environments function?
  • How do people's world views affect their attitudes to and use of environments?
  • What are the causes and consequences of change in environments and how can this change be managed?
  • Why is an understanding of environmental processes and interconnections essential for sustainable management of environments? 

Learning content

  • Environments
  • Environmental change
  • Environmental management
  • Investigative study
  • Investigate biophysical processes
  • Investigate the causes, extent and consequences of the environmental change=
  • Investigate the management of environmental change