Making a difference with 740 Primary School children taking part in Fishcare East Gippsland Winter Incursion workshops.

For the first time, Fishcare EG offered to the local primary schools, a new Winter Fishing program which consisted of an incursion educational workshop to be delivered in the classroom to all grade levels over the colder months of this year. Four local Primary Schools took part, St Brendan’s Primary, Lakes Entrance, St Marys Primary, Bairnsdale, and St Josephs and Orbost North , both located in Orbost.

Students from each level from Preps to Grade 6 took part in with St Marys having a total of 17 incursion classes that were held over 4 days with 380 students taking part. St Brendan’s Primary had 6 incursion classes with over 265 students taking part from each grade level. The 2 smaller schools, St Josephs and Orbost North had 3 incursion classes each with a total of 80 very enthusiastic students taking part. Each incursion class were held over an hour with the next class eagerly waiting at the door to take part.

The delivery of these workshops were customised to the children’s learning abilities and the aim was to teach the children about how to be sustainable future fishers and also how to look after our aquatic environments that surround them in East Gippsland. The class covered the importance of having size and bag limits on different fish species, why it is important to put unwanted fish back in the water and why we need to protect certain species of fish. Different pest species were discussed along with how we measure scale fish and sharks and safety put fish back into the water to live another day. All students enjoyed Fishcare coming into their classroom and the feedback from the teachers and parents was so positive that Fishcare EG will offer this program again next year.