Yarning circle pedagogy has been around for generations. embedded correctly and respectfully they can be a place that can really change behaviours and practices within your learning/working environment.

they can be use as a creative space, decision making place and a learning space.

Indigenous inspired Frog ponds

Encouraging animals back on country (where appropriate) is a great idea. Helping our ecological systems recover and bringing diversity back within our environments has been an Indigenous cultural concept for 1000’s of years and bringing back some frogs is a great way to remind people that we need the animals around us.

Steps

• Talk as a working group to find a great place for your frog pond
• Engage an Indigenous artist to help put your designs together and make sure you have a good plan before working on the actual project on the ground
• Contact your local frog experts, google can help with this one! Make sure you talk about which frogs are local to your area, and what they need to grow and food ect.
• Build your construction and get frogging!!!

Build a Gunya (home)

Building a gunya is a awesome way of groups coming together and creating something fun and experience what it takes to create a water tight home to live in using what they can find!

For the Gunya’s blow I have used tie wire to tie the logs in place, but you can use anything from string, vines and just about anything really!

Steps

• Find a spot where you don’t mind getting a little messy and, in the shade helps!
• Gather lots and lots of branches and straight sticks
• Gather loads of palm leaves and other materials that you can use for a roof
• Get the 3-4 longest straight sticks and tie them together
• Keep tying in the longer sticks to make a frame
• Cross tie sticks to hold the palm leaves up or roofing material up.
• Place the roofing material on the frame
  1. You can tie the first few layers in but it depends how long you want them up for, I have had mine up at Triballink for 1 year, in the open. I just keep adding in roofing material, when its needed.

Plant a bush tucker garden

I love making lemon myrtle tea and using items from the garden picked fresh in cooking! Truth is I love cooking! Building a Native garden is easy and these days you can do it with small spaces, big spaces, wall spaces, round spaces!!! You can do nearly anything.

I have put some pictures here of ideas you can use, but the actual plants are in the bush tucker section so have a good look around your space and think outside the box. I would encourage using recycled or up-cycled items to put your plants in, and remember space is up, down and side to side!

Reconciliation…..everyone has a part to play, and Sun Coast Christian School on the Sunshine coast have demonstrated a great plan to make this process aware

Using the Leadership team, and stemming from one persons idea, the whole school come together and participated in building a central area for the school.

A yearning circle space that students use every day.