Such was the impact of the event that the school was forced to close and now, nine months later, Year 11 geography students at the school are doing their bit to campaign for improved mitigation measures against a repeat of the flood event.
Teacher Rowena Morris co-ordinated a project for her students to investigate the impacts of the 2022 floods in Campaspe Shire.
“We decided as a class to do a report and agreed that the highest scoring report would be sent to the government as part of the submission process,” she said.
Rochester will host a flood inquiry hearing on August 23 and has been responsible for three quarters of the 1000 submissions made to the inquiry.
Student Mitch Wright’s report into the flood was given the nod and was forwarded to the Legislative Council flood inquiry committee for appraisal.
“His report details the different impacts on the community and what could have been done better,” Ms Morris said.
“I emailed to Dan Andrews and received an email from a parliamentary secretary acknowledging the content.
“They said they were impressed with the contribution.”
Ms Morris said the subject of geography reflected real-life issues.
“Geography touches on a lot of bases. Sustainability is a major focus of the subject,” she said.
Kyabram resident Mitch, 17, said he was aware of the impact the flood had on teachers at the school and also on a classmate’s grandparents, who live in Rochester.
He said the mechanical engineering role he was planning to pursue could well have a role in mitigation of flood events, with the potential to be involved in designing dams and lakes.
State Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh, through the connection of his wife, Liz Spicer, who is the Kyabram P-12 College chaplain, spoke to the class about the flood event.
The class also met with former Kyabram P-12 principal Kate Whitford, who is principal at Rochester Primary School and was significantly impacted by the flood.
“They also interviewed some of our staff from Rochester and Echuca. They had some very good material to use in compiling their submissions,” Ms Morris said.
The author of the winning submission is a high-performing student who is part of the Melbourne University Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars program.
As part of the project, which took an entire term, the students also surveyed members of the Rochester Facebook group and we were inundated with responses.
“They really wanted to get the information out there and explain the trauma people were continuing to experience,” Ms Morris said.
