2025: Beneath Our Feet

Focus of 2025: Beneath Our Feet

Each year at The Rainforest School, we choose a whole-school theme to bring learning to life across subjects. Our 2025 focus, Beneath Our Feet, invited students to explore the rich, complex, and ever-changing world beneath the surface — connecting science, history, culture and the arts in meaningful ways.

With support from the Queensland Government’s Engaging Science Grant, our Beneath Our Feet project became a deep and layered investigation into the natural processes and human stories that shaped the landscapes we lived on. Students explored soils, rocks, minerals, fossils and landforms, learning how they formed, how they changed over time and how people throughout history have interacted with and cared for them.

Hands-On Learning in Real-Life Context

To anchor our learning in the local landscape, we welcomed a wide range of visiting experts into our classrooms and travelled across the region to experience learning firsthand. Hands‑on, real‑life learning was an important part of our balanced approach to the curriculum, giving students opportunities to connect classroom knowledge with authentic settings.

Throughout the year, students:

• Met with a paleontologist, archaeologist, and anthropologist to understand different ways of uncovering the past
• Learned from Djiru Traditional Owners who visited our school to share local knowledge of Country and deep connections to land
• Engaged with the Cassowary Coast Regional Council to explore waterways, human impact, soil health and composting
• Learned about recycling systems and sustainable practices with EnviroCom Australia
• Took excursions to Fruit Forest Farm, Crystal Caves and Dunk Island, and joined a field trip to the Undara Lava Tubes and the Atherton Tablelands to explore geological formations, volcanic history, and land use

Cross-Curricular Connections

Learning flowed naturally across subject areas.

• In Science and HASS, students investigated soil types and quality, rock formations, volcanoes, fossils and the environmental impacts of climate.
• In English, they wrote information reports, persuasive pieces and developed interactive quizzes inspired by their field experiences.
• In The Arts, every student created an organically shaped ceramic bowl by draping clay over rocks gathered from our local creeks. These pieces reflected the textures and forms found in our natural surroundings and were proudly exhibited at the Mission Arts Gallery.

‍Purposeful Learning

Through Beneath Our Feet, students developed a deeper awareness of the natural world and our role in looking after it. They asked big questions: How did our landscape come to be? What stories lay under the ground we walked on? How can we be good caretakers of the land that sustains us?

By embedding our learning in local places, people and practices, the project fostered curiosity, responsibility and a sense of wonder, which sits at the heart of our values of community, connection, conservation and creativity.

‍Sharing Our Learning With the Community

Highlights of our Beneath Our Feet journey were shared with the wider community at our annual Spring Fair. Students contributed to displays and conversations that offered families and visitors a sense of what they had been exploring throughout the year. It was a lovely opportunity for our community to connect with the learning that had shaped the project.