As part of the Earth Smart Science Schools Program, Tinaroo Environmental Education Centre organised and ran an Earth Smart Science Expo at Dimbulah State School on Thursday 8th September 2011. Neighbouring schools, Chillagoe SS and Mutchilba SS also attended and participated in this event. Students from Prep to Year 10 participated in a variety of ‘hands on’ activities which had been organised into the 4 areas of Biodiversity, Energy, Water and Water. The students worked in groups and rotated around the 4 areas during the day.
Teachers from the participating schools as well as many community partnership organisations ran the variety of environmental activities. Experts from Tablelands Regional Council, Northern Gulf Resource Management Group, Local Wildlife Carers, Tangaroa Blue Foundation, King Brown Compost, Science Spark supported the Expo.
The Expo was highly successful in engaging students in a variety of real life environmental activities based around sustainability. Tangoroa Blue Foundatoin put together a real life activity where the high school students needed to conduct a tally on rubbish collected from a local beach. The students took this activity seriously and sorted and counted the items collected.
The students collected the following data:
| Item Collected | Number of Items | Item Collected | Number of Items |
| Cigarette butts | 301 | Recreational fishing | 1 |
| Cigarette lighters | 1 | Commercial fishing | 1 |
| Pens, markers | 4 | Rope and net scrap | 1 |
| Hard bits of plastic | 44 | Foam Buoys | 2 |
| Straws & cutlery | 43 | Foam cups and food packaging | 1 |
| Toothbrushes & combs | 2 | Glass beer stubbies | 12 |
| Toys | 11 | Binding, string | 1 |
| Bait Bags | 7 | Cloth & clothing | 6 |
| Bleach & cleaner bottles | 10 | Aluminium Cans | 7 |
| Lids, bottletops | 32 | Metal bottletops | 6 |
| Plastic bag remnants | 20 | Tetra pack drink cartons | 2 |
| Plastic bags | 37 | Paper cups and food wrap | 4 |
| Plastic drink bottles | 14 | Paper, newspaper | 14 |
| Plastic food packaging | 18 | Thongs | 12 |
| Plastic wrap nonfood | 2 | Rubber remnants | 4 |
| Rooms, brushes | 3 | Processed Timber | 4 |
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