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Moorditj Boodjar Environmental Award for Students

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Aboriginal NRM

Each year, the staff at Wheatbelt NRM offer the Moorditj Boodjar Environmental Award to all primary and secondary schools throughout the Wheatbelt for students who are actively involved in Landcare or natural resource management work. These students most often share a passion for our natural environment, have made an outstanding achievement in this area or have been actively involved in projects such as tree planting, displaying great care for local animals, insects and their habitats and also showing initiatives to clean up the environment.

Moorditj Boodjar means ‘strong country’ in the Noongar language and recipients of the award often embody these values through their involvement, pride and dedication in these areas, with each winning student receiving a beautiful nature book prize and a ‘Certificate of Merit’ at their school’s presentation evening. We take a committed approach in supporting our younger members in the community and encourage them to foster a genuine interest in the environment around them though events such as the Wheatbelt Science Forum, Dowerin Field Days displays, various school workshops, tree-planting and of course, special student awards such as these.

The Wheatbelt NRM team enjoyed visiting many schools over the previous two weeks to present the Moorditj Boodjar Awards and the resounding comments from our staff is that our Wheatbelt schools and teaching staff are educating their students to have super strong values of responsibility, pride and respect. The smaller Wheatbelt schools, as one Principal coined, are not just teaching the students, but they are raising them as a family. The students’ enthusiasm, talent and genuine passion displayed at their performances and their overall conduct is to be thoroughly commended and it was such a pleasure to see how the communities in the region congregate to support their schools. We thank all the schools who participated and welcomed us this year and we look forward to working with them in 2018.