Join local artist Amanda Stuart to see how water flows through the farm, and make your own model water wheel. Participants will tinker and make with ‘loose parts’ using timber, hammers and nails.

Discover how the Curley family stored water, and find out how they used the well in the early 1900s. This program engages children and their carers in the built and grassland heritage of Canberra, and is informed by the New Nature Movement. A self-guided map will direct participants through the museum’s paddocks to stimulate sight, hearing and touch in the natural environment.

Amanda Stuart is a Canberra based visual artist. After studying land management and earth sciences at university, Amanda worked as a park ranger. She studied an Honors degree in sculpture at the ANU School of Art, and went on to complete a PhD in Visual Art, in the Sculpture Workshop. Her practice embraces drawing, object making, sculptural installation, performance interventions in environments and the photo documentation of her work in situ.

Congratulations to all who came along to our workshop! To assemble the wheels, kids carefully positioned each piece of plywood onto a pinewood baton, and hammered 2.8mm galvanised nails through pre-drilled 2.5mm holes. It was noisy and satisfying work! After adding a nail at either end of the baton, as well as colourful designs using water-proof pens, we tested how well they worked by slowly pouring a bucket of water over the wheels – and they spun beautifully!

Our self-guide map also took the groups through the heritage site to touch lichen on rocky outcrops, to listen to the birds calling across the paddocks, and to investigate the many types of scat scattered across the paddocks!

We are delighted that a number of families used their wheels after the program – one family took theirs to the Cotter Dam, and another had great fun using a very high-pressure tap.