Living Memory Ulmarra
Project
Environmental history
Living Memory Ulmarra fosters an understanding of place — one that honours local wisdom, processes recent trauma, and builds practical capacity for an uncertain future.
Historian Kate Gahan is working with school principal Bianca Rhodes to deliver an integrated Stage 2 HSIE unit, called Living Memory, which brings together climate science, local history, Yaegl culture and stories, and local knowledge held by other community members.
Years 3 and 4 students at Ulmarra Public School will examine written and visual historical records of floods and look at the landscape and its environment. They will hear stories about past floods and other climate hazards, as well as learn about Yaegl Country and culture.
Group of Aboriginal people who worked at Yulgilbar Station, c.1890. Image courtesy of State Library of NSW.
The knowledge held by Yaegl Elders, local historians, emergency personnel and family members will be gathered during a Yarning Circle and oral history interviews. Students will use geographical tools such as maps to understand natural features, climate zones and rainfall patterns. The unit will build students’ knowledge by bringing together stories of past experiences of floods with understanding current guidelines for taking future preparedness actions.
The Living Memory unit will culminate in a student-created animation based on the town’s acquisition and use of two timber flood boats in the late nineteenth century – a tale about flood preparedness. Students will also discuss and make a Flood Preparedness Plan informed by the historical and geographical inquiry they complete throughout the unit. At a final school celebration, students will present their animations and preparedness strategies to their community.
Coldstream Street, Ulmarra. 1890.
The first butter factory at Ulmarra in built in 1892. Image courtesy of NSW State Records.
Ulmarra Ferry began to operate, 1902.
Background
Ulmarra is on Yaegl Country, where Breimba/the Clarence River shaped cultural life for thousands of years before European settlement. The 2022 floods brought unprecedented water levels to the Northern Rivers, and students at Ulmarra experienced firsthand the power of the river in flood.
Living Memory Ulmarra creates space for students to process what they've witnessed, learn from those who came before them, and develop practical understanding of living with environmental change. This school-based model offers an approach to environmental education that other flood-affected communities might adapt—one that centres local knowledge, respects lived experience and builds capacity for the future.
Project outcomes
Students will create flood preparedness plans informed by historical and geographical inquiry, and produce animated narratives based on real flood experiences. Through holding a Yarning Circle and conducting oral history interviews, they will engage directly with Elders, local historians, emergency personnel and family members, building understanding that connects curriculum outcomes with lived community knowledge.
Living Memory Ulmarra offers a model for place-based learning in flood-affected areas. The project will generate educational resources that other schools and communities might adapt.
Project collaborators
Kate Gahan
Kate is a professional community-based historian with over 25 years' experience working across regional NSW. Of Celtic/Irish descent, Kate was born and raised on Bundjalung Country, where she still lives. Kate has worked with local governments, museums and First Nations organisations and communities, and is widely recognised for her contributions to regional history and storytelling. She also manages a program called Storyplace, an award-winning Museums and Galleries of NSW website that shares stories from regional museum and gallery collections.
Elise Derwin
Elise is an award-winning photographer based on Bundjalung Country in Lismore, NSW, specialising in documentary and editorial photography.
Her images have featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Australian and other major newspapers. Elise has worked extensively across Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory, and completed assignments in the United States, Timor-Leste and Indonesia.
Fuelled by genuine connection to people and places, Elise aims to capture whole stories, not just moments. By taking time to know her subjects, she tells important, often personal stories through images filled with humanity and compassion.
Bianca Rhodes
Bianca is Principal of Ulmarra Public School.
Coldstream Street, 1927.
Living Memory South Murwillumbah is supported by NSW Reconstruction Authority, Southern Cross University and University of Technology Sydney. The NSW Reconstruction Authority is funding this work on behalf of the Australian Government.
Thanks to Lawrence Historical Society and Museum for their support of this project.
Banner image: George Bruhn’s painting of the mouth of Breimba/the Clarence River c.1860s. Courtesy State Library of NSW.
