read4Nature aims

Why create this group of projects?

There were some great national and global projects that read4Nature could help people be a part of.

read4Nature supported aims in 2012 national and global projects

This biodiversity project particularly contributed to Inspiring Australia Principle 12, by providing leadership in reading for science understanding and engagement in science locally through eight Wimmera towns for their communities and using their local library branch resources.  Its contribution to other principals was:
1 –new use of books and libraries for science
2 –teaching adults to look for Nature science to share with children
3- leadership through environmental educator with WRLC (a community organisation)
4- contributed to 2 National and 1 International program – with their agreed visions
5- used mostly Australian authored books will be used
6 – global through supporting the UNDB targets
7 –increasing understanding of old and young in Nature Science enables further development in science as it arises
8 – local science in the Wimmera for people to be part of close to home, and in the home
9 – uses the WRLC network in a new way
11 – targeting care-givers as readers to the youngsters encourages an interest in sciences from a young age and the attitude of looking for it in daily life
12 – involving some people, who are unlikely to have been involved in science activities since their school days, and discovered science that they can share with and inspire in a younger generation
13 – locally based in town branch libraries and linked via a regional library
14 – WRLC website used for disseminating the books from the different branches

The farm theme was chosen as a focus for the Workshops and National Science Event after finding the libraries had so many books on this theme and 2012 was the Australian Year of the Farmer.

The Wimmera Regional Library Corporation was a partner in this project which complemented its participation in the National Year of Reading. The relevant aims of the NYR were:
1 – understanding the benefits of reading as a life skill
2 – promoting a reading culture
3 – caregivers sharing books with children daily

2011-2020 is the United Nations Decade of Biodiversity.  This project supports parts of its Aichi targets, in particular:
Goal A of the Aichi Targets (mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society)
Target 1 (“By 2020, at the latest, people are aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably.”)
and Target 19 (“By 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its
loss, are improved, widely shared and transferred, and applied.”)

Specific aims for WRLC IA project

By using picture stories as a start, it will engage people who may not have had interest in, nor thought they had the abilities, to show their potential to inspire younger people to discover and raise awareness of

• picture books for nature in local libraries
• skills for reading these with children
• ideas for using these to develop a love of nature in children

AND

• help create a follow-up National Science Week event (at the same branch library in mid August 2012)

I conducted a similar project with the students of Jeparit Primary School using the library of the Mobile Area Resource Centre which circulates to small Wimmera schools. So that the resources produced by the WRLC and JPS projects used libraries that covered the whole Wimmera – big and small towns.

move to read4Nature concept

“This Inspiring Australia initiative is supported by the Australian Government through the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education in partnership with  Jeanie Clark, enviroed4all, and the Wimmera Regional Library Corporation.”

page updated 5 Feb 2013

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