Wow! This place is amazing! There is no noisy diesel generator and no power lines, but there are lights and hot water, a fridge and computers. There are no pipes going out of this place, but there are taps that flow and toilets.

Out here, they (and now we teachers) only use 5% of the energy and water that the average house in Australia uses (that’s 20 times less). It’s all because there are some really fantastic ideas being used here for generating and storing power (solar panels and batteries) and collecting and saving water (rainwater, with gutters and tanks and waterless toilets).

So where am I, exactly? Well, let’s start with the big picture and end up very focused. I’m in South Australia, on an Island to the south of Adelaide called Kangaroo Island. On the eastern half of the island (along the northern coastline) is an area that looks like a big lake – it’s called Pelican Lagoon. On the northern edge of the lagoon is the Pelican Lagoon Research Centre; and I’m sitting in the dining room of there.

I can’t believe it’s only the first day– we’ve already done and learnt so much! After driving into Port Hedland on Friday morning, I flew down to Perth, then across to Adelaide, where I stayed the night with my parents – I was happy to see them and our two beautiful dogs again . This morning, it was up early and in to the Adelaide airport to meet the six other teachers: Amy from Port Hedland, Phil from Broome, Kerri from Christmas Island, Mick from Jigalong, Susie from Exmouth and Lee from Tom Price. We were all a bit anxious to meet each other, I think, but were glad once we got to know each other.

We caught a small plane (that carried 32 people) from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, and Peggy (the scientist who’s in charge) was waiting for us at the airport in the rain when we arrived. She drove us back here to the Research Centre, end even before we got here, we had stopped a number of times to stop and look at some plants and animals and to talk about how they live and grow on the island.

We had a good lunch of soup and bread with salad things, before learning all about how this centre runs and having a talk about ecosystems, climates and habitats.

Later on we walked out into the lovely bushland here (which is actually really big - big enough to get lost in!) and Peggy and her partner Mike (who is also a scientist) taught us SO much about the plants that grow here and the animals. They showed us how to work out which animals have been in an area by looking at the holes they dig and the scats (that’s right – their poo!) they leave.

We spent a long time out in the bushland learning about and doing two particular scientific techniques for looking at what uses the land: a quadrat and a transect – I’ll show you these when I get back.