Australia DSA - Final Thoughts

Well, I’ve been home nearly a month now and I think I’m all caught up on my sleep and no longer "on the trip" in my dreams. As I’ve seen friends and family since returning home, I have enjoyed sharing with them my photos and adventures from “Down Under.” Anytime I am asked, “How was your trip?” I say the same thing…”It was amazing!” There is one question I always get asked that I never have an answer for, “What was your favorite thing?” I tell people that every activity we did was special and unique…picking just one favorite is impossible.

When you travel to another country, you want to see all of the great landmarks and attractions, and boy did we…We traveled along the rugged, yet beautiful coast of the Great Ocean Road. We played in the rain among the treetops at the Otway Fly. We witnessed the magnificent sunrise at Uluru. And we saw the rainbow of colors in the fish and coral on The Great Barrier Reef.

Not only do you want to see these sites, but you also want to meet people and become a part of the country's culture. From this adventure I will take away so many wonderful memories, not only of the sites we saw, but of the people we met. After this trip I am convinced that a country's people are what truly makes an adventure amazing. As I created this final blog post, I wanted to take some time to reflect on those special people we met in Australia.


Marion at the Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Park. Marion was one of the first Australians we met and she was anxious to welcome us…and put us to work. Shovels in hand, she lead us to Rita the Wombat’s enclosure where we got our hands dirty. It was great! She didn’t cut us any slack for just getting off a 15 hour flight…she had a job for us and that job needed to get done, even in the rain. Marion wanted everyone to get a fist-hand experience while at the park.


Bill and Jan at the Ooraminna Station Homestead. I felt like I was home the minute we arrived at the homestead. The hospitality of the Hayes family was amazing. They greeted us as we climbed off our muddy coach with huge smiles. I’m not sure if they were aware as to what they were getting into with our group. :o) Everyone at the homestead took us under their wing – helped us crack the whip, get our swags set up, shared the history of the station, taught us about the stars of the southern hemisphere, and even let us set up a geocache just out off their front porch! Each meal they were right beside us, sharing stories and tales. They did it all and we absolutely loved our stay…thank you Hayes family!


Cassidy is an Anangu gentlemen who, in the shadow of Uluru, shared stories and legends of his Aboriginal culture. With the help of his translator, John, we learned the true resourcefulness of the Aborigines. Using leaves from the native acacia tree, Cassidy demonstrated a glue-making process. He also gave us the opportunity to try our hand with native hunting spears. And finally, dot painting. Cassidy and John shared with us the important role dot painting has played in the culture and provided us guidance with our personal creations. We were truly fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend time with these two gentlemen.




Terry and Jacque on the banana farm. Could you think of a better way to start your day…lamingtons, tea, coffee, and on the farm!?!? We were greeted by a barefooted Terry, with iPhone in hand, who quickly whisked us off on the banana cart. As we toured the 600 acre farm, Terry shared stories, facts and jokes. His sense of humor reminded me of my late grandfather. As I reflected back on our time at the farm, I once again felt like I had been visiting a relative. I will say one thing Terry…you still owe me a banana! :o)


Dunken with Reef HQ and Orpheus Island. During our time at the aquarium and on the island, Dunken wore many hats: scientist, instructor, tour guide, tech support, concierge, alarm clock, and cheerleader with the consistent phrase, “Okay beautiful people.” Whatever you needed, Dunken was there! He made sure everyone was safe and enjoying their time learning about The Great Barrier Reef and the ocean in general. I believe that Dunken and his staff had a huge impact on the students which will lead them to make changes in their daily lives.


And last, but DEFINITELY not least, Amanda - our tour manager extraordinaire! I have never seen someone remain so calm and collected under such pressure. (She would make a great teacher!) When some students were feeling car sick, she sought out some ginger. When we couldn’t make it to the bush camp due to rain, she wrangled up a 4 Wheel Drive coach. And when an item was lost, she sent out the search party. Amanda made our trip amazing with all of her hard work and information…it wouldn’t have been the same without her.



Finally, I want to thank all of the amazing folks at Discovery Student Adventures and Discovery Education for giving my students and I the opportunity to take part in this amazing trip. We have come home from Australia with friends and memories that will last a lifetime.

We Have Humidity!

Up until yesterday, I had never said, “I love the humidity!” We have truly enjoyed our warm, humid weather here in Northern Australia. After leaving the center we headed north to Cairns and made a stop at Hartley’s Crocodile Farm. We were treated to an amazing show and dinner. Along with the giant crocs, another one of the night’s highlights was the up-close visit with a koala.

We did have some rain this morning, but we were on the coach headed to the banana farm, so we managed to stay dry. And we were treated to several more rainbows…something else that has been as common as the rain.

Before hopping on the “banana bus,” we enjoyed some tea and lamingtons on the front porch of our hosts. On our way to the banana fields we stopped by a gorgeous waterfall. For me, the biggest surprise about the banana trees were the large, plastic bags covering the bunches of bananas. The bags protect the bananas from the sun and pests. They are different colors based on their stage of ripening.

We finally arrived at the packing building and the kids enjoyed playing in the water as the bananas were being washed. As you can imagine, there was a “small” amount of water that made its way out of the trough.

Back on the coach we headed south from Cairns to Townsville. It was exciting to meet the staff members at Reef HQ who will be working with us over the next few days. We got a quick tour of the aquarium and then headed over to the dive shop for a snorkel lesson. All of the kids did an amazing job and are ready for the Great Barrier Reef.

We will be learning more about this amazing ecosystem tomorrow and will venture out to the waters around Orpheus Island on Thursday where we will take part in a research project in conjunction with James Cook University. I am very excited to be sharing a passion of mine, the underwater world, with my students. Everyone is looking forward to the reef.

In The Shadow of Uluru and Aboriginal Culture

On day 5 of our adventure we were fortunate enough to be treated to two things. First we were set to learn about aboriginal culture from an expert. Second, we were to get our first site of Uluru (Ayers Rock). This was to be a welcomed change of scenery, or so we thought, since our previous location the Ooraminna Bush Camp was rained out. At the bush camp we missed out on one of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip and that was to get a lesson on the Southern Hemisphere night sky. While we were at the Bush Camp we were treated very warmly by Bill and Jan.

The Ooraminna camp was in a very remote area about 1 hour out of Alice Springs. While there we learned about the cattle farming industry and how herders lived. We also spent the night outside in our custom built swags (padding, sheets, sleeping bag, and pillow). Jennifer Jensen and I already had planned on doing some geocaching with the students while on this trip and we felt this was the best place for us to not go geocaching, but rather create a cache. So we set one up with a Discovery Education travel bug and the best part was explaining the whole concept of geocaching to Bill and Jan.And our final offer of appreciation for their wonderful hospitality was me giving my Discovery Educator Network hat to Bill so he could add it to his hat collection on the wall in the dining area.




Our drive to Uluru took almost 6 hours and took us across the desert landscape of Central Australia. The most fascinating thing of the landscape were the trees and that famous red dirt. I can certainly appreciate anybody who has been here and says that dirt gets on your shoes and does not come off. At this point since I have so thoroughly enjoyed this trip I am not so sure I want it to come off my shoes. I created a digital story about our day that is below:

It NEVER Rains in Central Australia!

Famous last words, eh? Well, "Plan B" turned out to be a WAY better plan! Plan "A" was to drive into Bush Camp and sleep out under the stars in Swags. However, it rained! Did I say rain?! I don't know if that's a strong enough word! It rained hard enough for all of the main roads to be closed! The police stopped us on the road and would not let us pass. Plan B was to hire a 4-wheel bus to pick us up and drive us out into the bush!

Whoo hoo! We had SO much fun! We fish-tailed down the road with a bunch of adventurous students joyfully screaming and giggling in the cab! Jannita hopped in the front and took pictures! The puddles we went over sprayed up and over our bus as we drove on! When we got to bush camp, the windows were covered in red mud, and globs of it were caked all over the side of the bus!

Once at camp, the kids made "damper"- a bread made out of flour and water. We had it for dinner, and "Oh boy!" ... It was delicious! Who knew?!

We tried our best to warm ourselves by the fire, but it was very cold. The kids got to practice whip cracking with Bill Hayes, the owner of the land! He was amazing! Then we headed up to camp to learn how to make up our swags. Ken asked if the sheets were 1000 thread count. Sally told him that there were about 1000 threads in the sheet! (I don't think that's what he meant!) It was pretty funny watching a bunch of city kids learn how to make a swag! I was right there with them, wondering if we'd survive the night in the rain!

After our campfire, we got snuggled into our swags. Now, I have to apologize to everyone I've ever said that I didn't like camping because we were actually comfortable and cozy! Now, after this post, of course I'll deny ever saying that! :)
But I think it was the best night's sleep we got so far! The air was very cold, but it was surprisingly warm in the swag.

My students Tweeted that I actually camped and my daughter, at home in the States, thought that I may had hit my head or something. Nope, I didn't hit my head! It was just a very pleasant surprise! (And just so you know, I'd be HAPPY to camp... in Central Australia... in a swag again! ... but only under those conditions!)

Here's to more surprises!
Mrs. McGuire

Packing Up!

Well, I got a new rolling duffle bag today for the trip... after taking back two of them!  I opted for one with lots of pockets and sturdy wheels.  We are limited to 35 pounds.  Yikes!  I think I have 35 pounds of camera equipment!  (Just kidding!)  

Now we're just making sure that all the kids have their blogs up and going, and are all following each other on Twitter!  They're having a blast with Twitter!  :)  

Tomorrow, after church, I'm going to get a pedicure with my two girls and my Mom.  (You gotta have cute toes!)  Hmmm... what color should I get this time?!

I think I've read every book I can get my hands on about Australia.  I've called every friend I have in the country to see what we need to bring.  But because we'll be in so many different climates we're packing a little bit of everything!  

I still can't believe this is really happening.  I already miss my family!  

We're all looking forward to hearing from you all on the trip, so don't forget to write!  

Hugs!

Carol Anne

The Land uʍop ɹǝpun

As I write this posting I am beginning to sense the excitement and anticipation of my students going on this awesome trip with me.  This is the first time I have ever traveled with students and while I have had a desire to travel with students before now, this is the perfect scenario.  We are heading to the land down under, also known as Australia.  I am very much looking forward to all the wonderful things we will learn and experience.  Our itinerary is quite extensive and how we will manage all that fun will be the most challenging and welcoming part.  In fact our itinerary can be found here.

I have had the fortunate opportunity to travel to many countries and this will be my first trip to Australia.  One of the things I look forward to doing is capturing and sharing our experiences with lots of photos, more blog postings, videos, and podcasts.  Most of our content will be published or linked on this blog.  We also have twitter accounts set up so I will be posting to twitter here.

As the trip fast approaches I am hopeful that many of my friends and fellow educators around the world will encourage their students to follow along virtually with our journey and participate in our learning by adding comments to our blog postings, adding questions about things we are learning, postings comments on our twitter feeds, and perhaps creating digital stories with the photos we publish.  If you have a specific request for content, by all means let us know.  Also if you are an educator reading this and you are not part of the Discovery Educator Network now is your chance to take that next step in growing as a professional.  The link to the DEN can be found here.  Also if you have an interest in perhaps taking an adventure trip with a lucky group of students there is no better group to work with than the Discovery Student Adventures.  They can be found here.

And so with that I leave this posting with a few Australian phrases that I will be sure to use while I am there.

Away with the pixies  = Daydreaming

Bush = Land outside of the city

Good on ya = Good for you

Who can tell me what "Didgeridoo" means and post a little history about it?