What does Bookend do? The crash course...

We are an educational charity, started and funded by private individuals seeking to inspire students and the community with the opportunity to build positive environmental careers. Our strength lies in the diversity of our projects and partnerships. Although our work has started in Tasmania, we are seeking to build on-ground connections to other locations, and our work is available online to schools, students and any interested parties around the world.

Bookend projects include:

• Expedition Class: our unique and award-winning interactive student interface for primary schools, where students follow adventure teacher Andrew Hughes in the wilderness by satellite link and ask him questions live online as he's working. His recent expedition - the Tassie Tiger Hunt - involved setting motion sensitive cameras to survey wildlife in remote wilderness areas where the Tasmanian Tiger used to be found. Andrew has previously kayaked 5,000km through rough seas and crocodile infested waters to traverse the full north-south extent of the Australian continent, as well as coastal and internal Papua New Guinea, and a massive 15,000km self-powered trip around the Australian interior - all accessible online.

• Out of the Wilderness - Skullbone: a new secondary school project, with the opportunity for selected school students to expand on the interactive experience above by participating in wildlife and wilderness surveys on the ground, as well as contributing to building new online resources on these experiences for other students.
• Envirothon: an older secondary environmental competition, where students build on the above programs to demonstrate their level of understanding of these issues and the species involved. By invitation, this competition links to the North American competition of the same name, and (subject to sponsorship) our winning team will either attend the North American event or take part in once-in-a-lifetime on-ground environmental work.

•  Bridging the Gap (under development): a gap year program for school leavers, where they can 'taste test' different university level field studies (and gain preliminary university academic and financial credits) to see if different types of environmental careers appeal to them.
•  General and Lynchpin scholarships: a university level scholarship program, providing support to students in any discipline (whether science, arts, media, law, economics, etc) providing their work has environmental benefit/application and they are prepared to help mentor school students and communicate with the public. (Lynchpin scholarships are specifically climate change/ocean/plankton focussed).
•  Interactive Bonorong (under development): a new interactive and live-update webpage on the species, specific animals, keepers and visitors at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, with different levels of information targeted at all ages (because learning never stops!).
• The Future Builders: an ongoing student-driven, magazine-style documentary series for schools on environmental research and careers for all ages. Other media projects are also in development.