Quaama Public School and Eden Marine High School will benefit from the Rural Education Australia Program (REAPing Rewards) - a nation-wide program that targets education outcomes for children aged 0-18 in remote and rural communities. 

Quaama P&C Association successfully applied for $7000 towards the Learning with Air program at Quaama School.

The funding will go towards the purchase of iPads and an iPad Cart – a device to charge the iPads.

“When we go on excursions we will take the iPads with us as an extended learning experience,” Quaama school principal Ros Bannon said. 

Ms Bannon said as the children at her school don’t get lots of opportunities for excursions or sporting events due to their isolation, when the kids do go away having iPads will enable them to bring back the experience and share with the other kids. 

Students can take photos or videos, and put that information into apps.

Ms Bannon hopes to get about 10 iPads with the grant to share with all the children at the school.

She said her students are going to be very excited when they find out they have the new equipment.

“They absolutely love using iPads,” she said. 

The Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre was also successful in the grants, and was awarded $4000 towards its Surveying the Sea Shore program. 

This long-term program involves Eden Marine High School students in Years 9 and 10 in the marine studies class collecting data on the beach and entering it into a database to examine how climate change will affect animals on the coast. 

Discovery centre marine educator Jillian Riethmuller said she hopes the project will begin in Term 4 this year. 

She said the project will hopefully give students a better understanding of their local marine environment and provide an introduction into marine research techniques. 

“And to show students marine science is fun, as there is a stigma out there that it is just a lot of hard work,” she said. 

REAPing Rewards Round 4 is open until August 25, and for more details visit www.frrr.org.au/educate.