Courses and events

We have a range of courses and events throughout the year to help you learn and share new nature skills, meet like-minded people and have a lot of fun. From professional development for educators to training for volunteers, activities for families and seminars to learn more about what we do.

Professional development for educators

Sustainability in the Classroom and Beyond!

Thursday 10 October 2024, 9am to 4:30pm

Adelaide Botanic High School, 2 Frome Rd, Adelaide SA

Students and supervisor speaking around a table at the YEC forum camp 2024.


We support schools across metro SA to teach about and connect to the natural world, lead informed action on sustainability, and enable active citizens.

We're excited to host this one-day professional development forum for school and preschool educators to share your successes and challenges of educating for sustainability. The theme sustainability in the classroom and beyond focuses on practical actions and rich learning opportunities for your classroom, school and preschool.

You will learn from other educators leading interactive workshops and presentations and meet with like-minded professionals who are passionate about sustainability, youth leadership, community collaboration and real-world learning.

Adelaide Botanic Highschool is the perfect place for our forum. It's the first truly vertical school in SA, designed with smart, environmentally friendly building principles.

Cost

  • $130pp full-price
  • $80pp student or low income (limited tickets)
  • No cost for First Nations People, as part of our commitment to equity in access.

Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea are included.

Accessibility: We want the event to be accessible. Please let us know if there's anything specific you need to participate.

Getting there: there are many public transport options to the school, and bicycle storage is available onsite. Nearby parking options include $12 flat-rate parking in Wilson Carpark at Lot Fourteen (enter off Frome Road), or metered parking on Frome Road (zoo end), Victoria Drive, or Plane Tree Drive.

Meet the keynote speakers

Thea Stinear

Thea Stinear is the CEO of Cool.org – an online hub of real-world, curriculum-aligned resources accessed by more than 185,000 teachers. She is especially passionate about student engagement and helping students understand critical environmental and social issues.


Bringing her own experience as a science teacher and now an educational leader, Thea’s opening keynote will explore how to teach about challenging topics in ways that inspire hope and action.

Cameron Paterson

Cameron Paterson is the Director of Learning at Wesley College, Melbourne. With more than 30 years of experience as a school teacher, Cameron has made significant contributions to the field, including his Churchill fellowship on Dr Ron Ritchhart’s approach to cultivating dispositions of thinking, and the role of the classroom in supporting and shaping learning. He also co-edited the book, Flip the System Australia: What matters in education.


Cameron’s keynote will explore fostering adaptability and innovation within schools – emphasising the importance of nature for student wellbeing, and actively involving young people in community action.

Seminar series: Towards Cooler, Greener, Wilder

Our monthly online seminar series gives you a chance to hear about our key projects to cool, green and wild metropolitan Adelaide. There are great discussions on the approaches to our work too, like biodiversity-sensitive urban design (BSUD), water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) and the Urban Greening Strategy. You can learn a lot, ask questions and find out how you can help.

Tune into the next event below and listen back to past talks from our seminar series on YouTube.

Coming up next:

Frogs of Adelaide

Tue 24 September, 4pm to 5pm (online)

Frogs are a crucial part of our local ecosystems. They're food for other animals, they eat insects providing natural pest control, and they're sensitive to pollution, which means changes in their population is a good indicator of how their environment is going. Get to know the frogs you'll find in Adelaide, and how you can help them through our citizen science project FrogWatch SA, which recently won the SA Citizen Science Award!

For volunteers

Are you a member of one of the more than 100 enviro-volunteer groups we support? We have training opportunities and forums each month just for you!

Click one of the options below to find out more about them and register.

Not a volunteer but looking to get started? Find out more on our volunteering page, or stay tuned for events to connect with local groups.


Keep an eye out for more events on this page and head to our Facebook page for upcoming courses, events and workshops from our partners.