Miles Franklin Primary School students have collaborated with local artists to create a stunning mural on a new Icon Water facility in Evatt, an odour control unit designed to remove the bad smells from the sewer.
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00:00 So, Diona is responsible for the delivery part, aspect of building the odour control
00:21 unit that we see behind us today.
00:24 And the purpose of the odour control unit is to clean the foul air that's in the sewer
00:28 network through a series of mechanical filtration processes and ultimately put clean air back
00:33 into the atmosphere and maintain the reliability of the sewer network within Canberra.
00:39 Part of our stakeholder engagement efforts to build the Belconnen Trunk Sewer, Diona
00:48 reached out to the Miles Franklin Primary School to ask the students and the teachers
00:52 if they'd like to be involved with designing the mural that we see behind us today.
00:57 And as I'm sure you can see, the results are fantastic and today is a really special occasion
01:02 because we have those same students who were involved in the design actually coming out
01:06 here today to close that loop and assist us painting what is a wonderful mural that you
01:10 can see here today.
01:11 We've got kookaburras, we've got Murray Cods, we've got all these different species that
01:33 exist right from frogs and turtles and all these different things we've seen.
01:41 So many different eels and wood ducks, parrots, so right from high up in the parrots and the
01:50 little wrens down to the bigger fish.
01:54 It's a wonderful experience for the kids to design something and see it placed on the
02:01 building and then they will grow.
02:03 This building will still be here when they finish high school and the painting will still
02:07 be there and they will have that connection with their land care workers.
02:17 This is our first day doing it and I find it pretty exciting.
02:22 It's a pretty good opportunity to come out here and paint the mural and I think it's
02:27 a great thing for helping with everything and it looks nice.
02:36 It's helping the environment.
02:39 It's been pretty exciting and it looks really good.
02:44 I'm pretty impressed with what the artists have done and knowing the fact that we got
02:49 to be a part of this and we got to help out and design some of this is really great and
02:55 I'm very grateful that we got this opportunity.
02:58 Not many people get to have these things but we get to and we get to help and we're not
03:03 just picking up things, we get to paint.
03:06 It's really cool.
03:07 We've been painting these reeds over here that I think he designed.
03:15 I believe I did have a design in this, I'm not sure if it was on this side or the other
03:21 side but I think it was this side with the reeds and the birds and stuff.
03:27 I designed it with my friend last year.
03:29 It was a fun time because it was fun and now that I get to be here it's fun because I get
03:34 to leave something behind from last year because last year when we came down to the wetlands
03:39 it was fun but now I get to remember every time I come past this that I had an input
03:43 on making this thing.
03:50 We walk year long to the wetlands here at Djinandera Creek on a fortnightly basis.
03:58 We have expert speakers who meet us there quite often.
04:03 We might have an ornithologist who will do surveys to observe birds.
04:08 We're involved with Water Watch so we collect water and learn about the different types
04:14 of bugs that live in the water and how that's an indicator for the health of the waterways.
04:20 We just really try to get them connected with their local area and just observe the seasons
04:27 as the year progresses.
04:30 The children painting today, they were part of the whole cohort last year who designed
04:34 this mural and we based it on the waterway system in this area actually.
04:39 So it's Djinandera Creek to the Murrumbidgee to the Murray which ends in the Southern Ocean
04:43 so we wanted them to understand all the different living things that lived in each ecosystem
04:49 and how they all connect and our choices next to the Djinandera Creek will actually affect
04:56 the water that flows into the Southern Ocean.
05:06 I guess it's been a while since I was at school but it's really fun to get in there with the
05:12 kids hearing them talk about the parts of the project that they designed and then to
05:17 be I guess getting my hands dirty myself and painting alongside them.
05:21 I'm probably not too good at painting outside the lines, I've been trying to keep it straight
05:26 but I guess we're designing a bit of a free flowing activity so fun for everyone involved.
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