{"id":10905,"date":"2021-06-22T14:33:04","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T03:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/?p=10905"},"modified":"2021-06-22T14:33:04","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T03:33:04","slug":"hanging-with-the-hanging-swamp-at-the-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/?p=10905","title":{"rendered":"High School Hanging with the Hanging Swamp at the Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For this project, we&nbsp;combined science and geography for an investigation into the biodiversity and function of the hanging swamp at&nbsp;Wentworth Falls lake, and to assess the impact of climate change on this environment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Weekly sit and sketch, site studies to investigate our key inquiry questions with the assistance of local ecologists, and in class studies of swamps formed the basis of our investigation. Our findings together with the relationship we created with this local environment, have changed how we think about the humble hanging swamp.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were keen to share our findings with others and so students undertook a range of projects. These included&nbsp;a podcast&nbsp;for local radio,&nbsp;a&nbsp;short&nbsp;film, a&nbsp;report&nbsp;to BMCC&nbsp;with recommendations for swamp management&nbsp;and mitigation against climate&nbsp;change;&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;wonder hub (students taking a younger class to the swamp for an experience that would enable them to link the beautiful local swimming place to the&nbsp;biodiversity and function of the swamp), and a range of artistic works that expressed the uniqueness and value of the hanging swamp&nbsp;as well as its role in addressing climate change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some highlights&nbsp;from our investigations: Realising that while&nbsp;we&nbsp;were quietly sketching and&nbsp;observing,&nbsp;swamp&nbsp;birds&nbsp;were observing us! Taking up a core sample of&nbsp;12000-year-old&nbsp;peat! Finding dragonfly and&nbsp;caddisfly&nbsp;larvae. Coming to an understanding that the humble swamp acts as a community, sharing resources,&nbsp;sheltering,&nbsp;and protecting&nbsp;in service of the whole ecosystem. We also found out that healthy swamps can play an important role in mitigating climate change, as they&nbsp;absorb carbon from the atmosphere, are resilient to extreme weather events, and can even moderate extreme temperatures during fire events.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later in the term, we&nbsp;did a&nbsp;fieldtrip to&nbsp;Ganguddy,&nbsp;also a swamp,&nbsp;and were able to once&nbsp;again&nbsp;appreciate the biodiversity and function of swamps to the whole ecology of the&nbsp;Greater&nbsp;Blue Mountains&nbsp;region.&nbsp;Swamps regulate the water for all the stream communities and waterfalls.&nbsp;Hopefully, the relationships we are making with these swamp environments will enable us to be part of the protection and conservation of&nbsp;the&nbsp;natural&nbsp;&nbsp;environments&nbsp;as a way of restoring some balance to our stressed planet&nbsp;and in proactively responding to the impacts of a changing climate.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3879.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"10906\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3879.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/?attachment_id=10906\" class=\"wp-image-10906\"\/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3876.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"10911\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3876.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/?attachment_id=10911\" class=\"wp-image-10911\"\/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3870.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"10913\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_3870.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/?attachment_id=10913\" class=\"wp-image-10913\"\/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Kindlehill&nbsp;School&nbsp;Says,&nbsp;Save&nbsp;the&nbsp;Swamps<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dear Councillors and Management,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Swamps&nbsp;can be&nbsp;described as the life blood&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Blue&nbsp;Mountains&nbsp;ecology&nbsp;but how do we know&nbsp;this?&nbsp;What made us&nbsp;care about swamps?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the past term&nbsp;at&nbsp;&nbsp;Kindlehill,&nbsp;high school&nbsp;students have&nbsp;been studying the hanging swamp at Wentworth Falls lake.&nbsp;Essentially&nbsp;we&nbsp;learnt how vital the hanging swamp is&nbsp;in&nbsp;protecting&nbsp;the&nbsp;lake environment and the biodiversity it holds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Wentworth&nbsp;Falls hanging swamp&nbsp;is biodiverse.&nbsp;While&nbsp;researching&nbsp;this, within&nbsp;a short time,&nbsp;students found&nbsp;12&nbsp;macroinvertebrate&nbsp;species&nbsp;at&nbsp;the&nbsp;lake&#8217;s&nbsp;edge.&nbsp;Some of these,&nbsp;such as the Caddisfly larva,&nbsp;can only thrive in&nbsp;high quality water.&nbsp;The swamp acts as a&nbsp;purification&nbsp;device for the water in the lake and ensures the water is clean.&nbsp;It also&nbsp;functions&nbsp;as a store of&nbsp;water,&nbsp;slowly&nbsp;releasing the water&nbsp;into the lake.&nbsp;One scientist told us that&nbsp;the swamp&nbsp;holds&nbsp;the same amount as water&nbsp;as is&nbsp;in the lake.&nbsp;We also discovered that the swamps generally&nbsp;play&nbsp;a key role&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;filtering&nbsp;and&nbsp;regulating&nbsp;of&nbsp;water flows&nbsp;into&nbsp;streams within the Blue Mountains&nbsp;region.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Hanging swamp&nbsp;like other swamps, can help mitigate the effects of climate change.&nbsp;Each swamp&nbsp;can be seen as&nbsp;an organism,&nbsp;formed over tens of thousands of years. This formation has led to swamps holding lots of carbon.&nbsp;They capture carbon&nbsp;and other greenhouse gases&nbsp;from the atmosphere and store it.&nbsp;&nbsp;If swamps dry out&nbsp;or are damaged,&nbsp;they can release this&nbsp;stored&nbsp;carbon back into the atmosphere and contribute to an increase in global warming.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Waterlogged swamps also help moderate extreme temperatures during events such as bush fires.&nbsp;Their water laden, soggy nature,&nbsp;means they&nbsp;can endure&nbsp;prolonged periods&nbsp;of drought.&nbsp;In heavy rainfall they capture the excess water, store&nbsp;it,&nbsp;and slowly release it as&nbsp;needed, preventing erosion and&nbsp;floods.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>The swamp, although a resilient environment is not invincible. The swamp is prone to damage from climate change due to worsening&nbsp;extreme&nbsp;weather events.&nbsp;For example, more frequent bushfires, floods, storms, drought, and many more could destroy the swamp. Last year&#8217;s bush fires placed the swamp at risk.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is why&nbsp;I share my concern here&nbsp;about&nbsp;plans&nbsp;for a walkway&nbsp;through&nbsp;the hanging swamp&nbsp;at Wentworth Falls Lake.&nbsp;I&nbsp;fear this might endanger&nbsp;its&nbsp;resilience and&nbsp;functioning.&nbsp;Given swamps can play a significant role in reducing the impact of climate change, I&nbsp;would like to see&nbsp;a swamp&nbsp;protection plan in place&nbsp;as part of&nbsp;the&nbsp;BMCC\u2019s&nbsp;broader climate change strategy.&nbsp;I would also&nbsp;like to see support for residents to rehabilitate swamps on their properties,&nbsp;and a&nbsp;rehabilitation plan for any swamps on council owned land.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">With kind regards<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Year 10 student&nbsp;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Kindehill&nbsp;School&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For this project, we&nbsp;combined science and geography for an investigation into the biodiversity and function of the hanging swamp at&nbsp;Wentworth Falls lake, and to assess the impact of climate change on this environment.&nbsp; Weekly sit and sketch, site studies to investigate our key inquiry questions with the assistance of local ecologists, and in class studies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":900861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-10905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kindlehill","tag-geography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/900861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/khpost.test.pallasmarketing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}