Dorroughby Environmental Education Centre - NSW Environmental Education Centres

Dorroughby EEC

The centre provides authentic, curriculum based fieldwork learning experiences for exploring, investigating, understanding and connecting with the natural and made environments.

Dorroughby Environmental Education Centre is a NSW Department of Education facility located 20 minutes North East of Lismore.

Experienced teachers provide sustainability, cultural and environmental programs for students Kindergarten - Year 12 at the centre, within schools and at a variety of other sites e.g rainforests, wetlands, and coasts.

The centre sits on Bundjulung country.

Visit Dorroughby EEC website

Maps end here

K-6

Forest party

Science

Early Stage 1

Come on a picnic to Rocky Creek Dam with all the local animals. Find out what animals need to survive in the forest and use your senses in games and on a sensory bush walk. Sing songs.

Program details

View all available programs

7-12

Place and liveability

Geography

Stage 4

Students spend the day investigating Ballina Flatrock and surrounds. Participate in mapping, field sketching, plant identification and weather chart reading. Record and analyse the abiotic factors of the site with basic geographer's tools equipment and record data collected along a transect. Investigate the livability aspects of the area and respond thoughtfully to the changes to the area that have happened since the non-Indigenous peoples settled in the area.

Program details

View all available programs

Resources

Time and Change

HSIE

Stage 2-3 First Contacts

Lesson 1 - BIG SCRUB - Content

Approximately 335 million years ago, Scientists believe that all the land masses were in a single super continent called Pangea. Around 200 million years ago this land mass split into Laurasia and Gondwana. 40 million years ago, broke off and started to drift North from Gondwana. At this time Australia was covered with rainforest.

The Big Scrub, our local rainforest, was a subtropical rainforest that covered an area of 75,000 hectares between Byron Bay, Lismore and Ballina prior to European settlement. It was the largest expanse of lowland subtropical rainforest in Australia. It is directly descended from the great Gondwana rainforest that covered Australia 40 million years ago. There are some tree species in the Big Scrub today that are said to be 240 million years old!!! Aboriginal peoples of the Bundjalung nation belonged to the land of the Big Scrub for 10s of 1000s of years. They were its custodians and found food, medicines and tool making materials in the rainforest.

Student activities

View all learning resources