10th - 18th October Nature Book Week

 

Nature Book Week is a free series of exciting nature-themed events for story-lovers of all ages. As part of the program, the Wilderness Society announces the winners of their annual Karajia and Environment Awards for Children's Literature, which has been running since 1994.

Browse the shortlists for the Karajia and Environment Awards for Children's Literature, here wilderness.org.au/bookawards. The school library has most of these books and it will be fun to reread the winners in the first week back at school. 

Perhaps you could go outside to read books sometime this week too. There are suggestions for lessons and activities that celebrate nature on the website too.

Here's some of the shortlisted books:

11th - 17th Earth Science Week

 

As the nation's trusted source of geoscience data and insights, Geoscience Australia is proud to champion Earth Science Week – a global celebration that highlights how Earth science shapes our everyday lives.

This year's theme, Critical Minerals for a Thriving Society, spotlights the minerals behind the technology we use every day – from smartphones and solar panels to electric vehicles and renewable energy. These minerals are essential to Australia's prosperity and the transition to a sustainable future, and Geoscience Australia plays a central role in finding and understanding them.

Earth science is beneath our feet. The Earth sciences that focus on what’s below our feet include fields such as geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and palaeontology. These fields examine rocks, landscapes, and resources to allow us to see how the planet's systems work, how they evolved over time, and how humans interact with them. Basically, all research and investigations that observes, explores, or explains Earth's composition and evolution falls under Earth sciences.

We live in an amazing world with phones, computers, advanced medicine, and electric cars. To create this modern technology, we rely on a wide variety of elements (like aluminium) and minerals (such as bauxite) that come from rocks in the Earth.

Elements like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths are vital for clean energy technologies—like solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. We identify these minerals and elements as Critical Minerals and Strategic Materials, due to their importance and the risk that their supply chains could become disrupted. Without them we would not be able to enjoy any of these advanced technologies that we use in our daily lives.

Geoscience Australia provides resources to help us celebrate Earth Science Week, including lesson plans for teachers.

The library I work in caters for three to eight year olds, their teachers and their parents and while I might not be looking for books on critical minerals, I am constantly asked for books about rocks, gems, fossils, volcanoes and caves.

Recently I bought Stalactite & Stalagmite  by Drew Beckmeyer, sight unseen because it was a Caldecott Honor Book and on a topic my students are fascinated by. It was too expensive, but I trusted the reviews. I do like the art and the talking rock formations and animals, but I am often confused about who is talking as there are no speech bubbles. I thought the speech text was coded, mustard yellow for the trilobite, red for the triceratops, capital letters for the giant ground sloth, upside-down brown text for the bat, and pink and blue text for the stalactite and stalagmite, but it is inconsistent when they are speaking. I'm sure my students won't be fazed. I love the very small white timeline along the bottom of the pages and the information at the back about the creatures and features written about in the story. This is a book that spans a wide-age readership because of all the unusual features and the myriad of ways it could be read.

Books about caves are not easy to find for this age group. Here's some easy nonfiction:

Here's some that also provide a historic view of caves:

The library has these books about volcanoes. The first two are always on loan. My students love the oversized books by Claire Saxby and Jess Rackleft.

And of course this is the time to display books on rocks, gems and fossils too. See here.

5th -11th October Australian Wildlife Week

Established by the Australian Wildlife Society, this national event happens during the first full week of October. Its goal is to build a positive bond between people and nature while raising awareness about native animal conservation.

I haven't written about this day before because many Australian animals have their own day eg.

1st April is International Tasmanian Devil Day.

3rd May is Wild Koala Day; 25th September is Save the Koala Day.

6th June is Platypus Day in parts of Australia, but in Victoria October is Platypus Month.

19th July is World Echidna Day.

31st July Brushtail Possum Day.

1st September is World Numbat Day.

The first Sunday in September is National Bilby Day.

1st September is World Numbat Day.

The first Sunday in September is National Bilby Day.

Around the 17th September is World Emu Day.

26th September is World Cassowary Day.

22nd October International Wombat Day.

24th October World Kangaroo Day.

Pick a day and celebrate... the library will do Wombats and Kangaroos later in the month.

See Pinterest here for book suggestions for Australian animals.

October Bat Appreciation Month

Why are bats important to the environment?

• Pest Control. Bats aren’t just skilled at creating detailed acoustic maps of their surroundings; they’re also nature’s pest control. It’s estimated bats provide a natural pest control to reduce crop damage and the cost of pesticides by over $1 billion each year.
• Pollination. Many bats are fruit or nectar-eating bats, which means as they fly from plant to plant, they’re pollinating those plants too. Bats not only maintain a healthy biodiverse ecosystem but contribute to our food supply. 
• Seed Dispersal. When bats eat fruit, they in turn disperse the seeds further, adding to our ecosystem’s biodiversity and helping regenerate forests.
• Nutrient Cycling. In delicate cave ecosystems, bat scat, or guano, provides nutrients upon which other cave-dwelling creatures rely.

October is the ideal time in the school library to get to know bats because many Halloween stories feature bats and they make a fun display.

Nonfiction:

Fiction:

Faction:

More: Pinterest and Activity book