Research Highlights

Stage One:
Research Training Workshops

Empowering Young People to Engage with Mt Tamborine Landcare Reserves was funded by the National Landcare Program. The project involved three key stages, with Stage Four community exhibitions to take place in 202. During Stage One, the Southern Cross University project team, led by Professor Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, worked with children and young people as neighbourhood researchers to map their awareness of and participation in local Landcare reserve sites. The children and young people learned to engage with the theory and methodology of child-framed research and other environmental theories through participatory Research Training Workshops, including a variety of ethnographic and creative research methods for collecting data about relationships with/as nature, and engagement with Landcare reserves in their communities.

The co-researchers were then encouraged to conduct independent research in their own time, to investigate the diversity of young people's awareness, attitudes and actions regarding relationships with/as nature, and engagement with Landcare reserves on Mount Tamborine. As active researchers on the research team, these young people were able to select research methods that resonated with them and their interests, including the use of interviews, video, photography, visual diary entries and more.

I spoke about the [Youth4Landcare] project to many parents during the process, and their feedback was that they were thrilled to have an opportunity for their child to be part of a university project (Mark Stevens, Head of Primary, TMC).

See image gallery below, or view another stage...
Stage 2: Think Tanks
Stage 3: Youth4Landcare summit

This project is supported by Southern Cross University, through funding from the Australian Government's National Landcare Program.