About the Fish Creek 4061 Program
Incorporating creek rehabilitation, educational resources and water quality testing, Fish Creek 4061 inspires lifelong action.
The Fish Creek 4061 project began in 2014 and aims to link our community with our local environment.
The Fish Creek project is an initiative of the students of Hilder Road State School and the P&C, and has won numerous awards for its contribution to learning, creating community and caring for our waterways.
The unique Fish Creek 4061 education program, which is aligned with the Australian Curriculum, ensures teachers can easily deliver environmental learning into their classroom. Think Global – Act Local.
We have partnered with the Brisbane City Council to become a Habitat Brisbane Bushcare group dedicated to helping revitalise and restore our local environment.
The website www.fishcreek4061.com.au provides lots of additional information about the ecology, local history and culture of Fish Creek.
This project is 100% volunteer run by people who care about their local environment and community, and hope to pass that care on to their children.
Education Program
n conjunction with the creek rehabilitation, an education program was developed to support students to understand the impact of the work they were doing down at the creek. By adapting their Curriculum learning to centre around the local area, the Fish Creek team’s education specialist created resources that better engage students in their everyday classroom work. On the Teachers Resources page you will find numerous educational resources that have been custom written for the Fish Creek 4061 program. By keeping learning local, educational outcomes are significantly better.
This website was created as a local resource to compliment the education program, and provide the community of The Gap with a place to share and explore local history, cultural, and environmental knowledge.
Creek Rehabilitation
The number of volunteers who have given their time
The number of metres squared weeded and replanted
The number of local native plants added to the creek site
Water Quality Testing
The Water Quality Testing program started when the Fish Creek 4061 staff teamed up with staff from SAS Laboratories (Urban Utilities) at the end of 2016 through to the end of 2017. SAS Laboratories generously gave their time free of charge to work with the Fish Creek 4061 team to provide environmental education for the students at Hilder Road State School for a year so they could improve the health of their creek.
During this year, education resources were made so that the students could ask and answer the questions:
- Is my creek healthy?
- What can I do about it?
Every month Year 5 and 6 students, class by class, came down to Fish Creek, and undertook a 1.5 hour workshop with the SAS laboratory experts learning about aquatic ecology of the creek and collecting and recording the results they would need to take considered action later.
The monthly data (field and lab results) have been uploaded on to the Fish Creek 4061 website for teachers, students and community members to use. This, combined with an easy to follow step-by-step guide, means that anyone in the community has the means to test their own waterway.
At the end of 2017, members of the Fish Creek 4061 team went in to all of the year 5 and 6 classrooms to support the teachers analyse the data with the students and decide what areas the creek needed help with. The teachers followed this up by supporting their students to propose and undertake a solution. By the end of the year, all students knew why they should improve the health of their creek and how to do it. Even better, students carried out their plans and carried out a variety of initiatives to help the creek.