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Fire Stick Tours offer half day study tours to large groups on Magnetic Island, full day study tours in Townsville and Cairns and extended camping tours targeting tertiary level botany, environmental science and evolutionary biology students. Tours can be arranged and delivered according to specific learning outcomes or our standard study tours cover a wide range of topics in a systematic way.
We currently supply to Arcadia University, Pennsylvania; Emory University, Atlanta; Tropicadoo, Japanese students; and The RAAF Combat Survival School. More universities are currently sourcing our tours for the Cairns Region.Educational tours are listed below in order of area:
Townsville Region:
Magnetic Island:
Walk through the Coastal Vine-thickets, Melaleuca Woodlands and Forests and Eucalyptus/Corymbia Woodlands and Forests with our professional guide and learn what no other operator on the island can teach you. See, feel and experience Aboriginal culture through the environment. See wallabies and maybe even a koala in the wild. Try eating green tree ants, try using bush sandpaper (glass paper), try to make fire the traditional Aboriginal way.Geology and Coastal Geomorphology;
Where did all the granite come from, and when? Why are our beaches an orange colour? What are all those lumps on the beach? Where did the clay particles in the soil come from? And how does geology affect vegetation?Vegetation and Floristics;
How did Aboriginal environmental husbandry practices affect vegetation and floristic composition? How has vegetation evolved since Aboriginal environmental husbandry practices have stopped? What will happen if Aboriginal environmental husbandry practices are never reintroduced and how will this affect the floristic composition of the various vegetation regimes?Aboriginal Physical Culture;
What are the bush foods? How were poisonous plants processed to make them edible? Where are the bush medicines and how are they used?
What plants were used for fibre and how? What plants were used for dye and how? What plants were used for timber to fashion tools and implements? See Day Tours
Students from Emory University June 2006
Learning about Aboriginal fire-stick management practices and how this affected vegetation. The trees in the background are: Melaleuca leucadendra The Weeping Tea Tree, Paper Bark Tree. Why do these trees have hard flammable leaves and what did Aboriginal people use this plant for?Students trying Green Tree Ants
Students from Arcadia University , Pennsylvania discuss plate tectonics, geology and coastal geomorphology. August 2006
Green Tree Ants
How do they affect the plants that they inhabit? What use did Aboriginal people have for them and what are they used for today in agriculture?
Here students from Cloncurry learn about Aboriginal history
in terms of first contact. December 2006. The large trees in the background are: Canarium australianum The Canoe Tree. Did Aboriginal people use this tree to make dugout canoes and why?
What special adaptations has this tree ( Casuarina equisetifolia Coastal She Oak) evolved as a strategy to cope with arid conditions and how does is maintain its current level of genetic diversity?
Cape Cleveland:
Geology and Coastal Geomorphology;
Discuss the geology, plate tectonics and the formation of The Great Diving Range, coastal geomorphology (discussing processes involved in weathering, decomposition and deposition).Vegetation and Floristics;
Look at the different vegetation regimes i.e. Melaleuca forest and woodland, Eucalyptus/Corymbia forest and woodland, the mangrove ecosystems and coastal vine thickets in terms of floristic composition and evolution. See examples of plant evolution in terms of strategies plants employ to deal with various environmental stresses. Plant identification.
Aboriginal Physical Culture;
Look at Aboriginal influence on the environment; fire stick management, domiculture, temporary camp sites, shell middens.
Vehicles we hired for Arcadia University tour on Magnetic Island, March 2007. No group is too large.
Arcadia University Students walking along the road after looking at coastal vine thicket, Horseshoe Bay Magnetic Island. March 2007
