Primary school students in Morocco may soon be reading picture books about Australian wildlife after a local program wowed audiences at an international environment conference.

As part of the Creative Catchment Kids program, children from schools on the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers researched, wrote and illustrated picture books with natural resource management themes.

In mid-June, two local delegates presented the program to 2400 delegates at the Seventh World Environmental Education Congress in Morocco.

Murray Darling Association’s Adrian Wells said delegates were very impressed by the books, with a number of countries now looking at similar types of publishing programs. 

“There’s a great deal of interest in Australian animals overseas even though a lot of people are not quite sure what these animals are,” he told ABC Goulburn Murray.

Mr Wells said the students involved in the program, now entering its third year, had spent around six months putting the books together.

They were then produced by a professional printer and distributed as school readers and to regional libraries.

The books are also available online, with teachers able to project them onto whiteboards and electronically turn the pages.

“They’re used by the younger students in schools to learn to read,” he said.

“But they’re learning to read using words that were developed by older students and pictures that were drawn by older students.

“I’ve run a lot of workshops with students and one of the questions I ask is ‘Who’s responsible for fixing up the problems of the Murray Darling Basin?’

“They all say ‘We all have to take responsibility’.

“Everybody has to play a part, and what the students are doing with this book-writing program is playing a part.”