This page provides an opportunity for the global community to participate in commemorating the annual extinction of 27,000 plant and animal species.

The Marine Discovery Centre

The Marine Discovery Centre in Woodbridge, southern Tasmania, displayed a Memorial Project panel in our entrance foyer for several months during 2008.  The panel was incorporated into our threatened marine species display.  Students who visited the Centre were invited to make a picture or shape of a threatened Tasmanian marine species for the panel.  The presence of the Memorial Project panel created a great deal of interest amongst our visitors.  It was a useful tool for the teaching staff of the Centre to raise awareness amongst students and to introduce the issues surrounding threatened species and the impacts of extinction.  For students and accompanying adults alike, the recognition that each pocket in the panel represented a species that could (or had already) become extinct had a dramatic impact, with many people expressing surprise and dismay.

	Students were however also excited at the thought that their artwork would be viewed by people around the world when the series of panels was complete, and that they were themselves contributing to raising awareness about the global extinction rate. The Marine Discovery Centre was very pleased to be a part of the Project.
The finished panel on display in the foyer of the Marine Discovery Centre.

Ros Asten
Primary Coordinator
Woodbridge Marine Discovery Centre

Getting started – July 17th 2007
In January 2007 I was watching a news broadcast which mentioned that 150 plants and animals are lost to extinction each day. I was surprised by this information and so I attempted to verify it. In so doing I was alarmed to find that the annual extinction rate globally was estimated to be in the range of 27,000. One of the reasons that this perturbed me is that in the previous year I had made art works to commemorate the 22 extinct plants in my island state of Tasmania. This body of visual art work consisted of embroidered wreaths, funeral urns and an exegesis and it took me four years to complete. If it took me four years to commemorate 22 plants, I wondered how I would possibly make an art work to commemorate 27,000 extinct life forms, and how long such an undertaking would take.

The solution to this dilemma is Memorial, and from the inception of the piece help, good will and encouragement have been close at hand. I mentioned the idea for the silk panels which would hold the shapes cut out by many people to my colleague Julie Browett. Julie immediately recognised how this project could be communicated to the global community and we formulated the project together.

The initial stages of the project involved testing materials and dimensions and securing financial support from the Faculty of Education and the University. Through a mutual contact from World Education Forum Tasmania (WEFT), Julie contacted Severn Cullis-Suzuki and we were delighted that Severn accepted an invitation to be the patron for the project and to launch the piece. A few days before the piece was to be launched, three panels were hung in the gallery that adjoins our Faculty. Information about contributing a shape along with paper squares and scissors were placed the on a table nearby. To my surprise and delight people started to cut out shapes and to place them in the panels straight away. The shapes people cut out were fascinating and given the consideration demonstrated in the items, we decided to launch the piece as it was evolving.

Severn launched the piece on 27th June 2007 in front of a large crowd of University colleagues and participants from a conference on biodiversity. I was touched by Seven’s comment that the piece was profound and that the act of placing a shape into it was moving. Over the next few weeks people have continually made contributions to the piece. Shapes are being added in a pattern which appears to bubble and effervesce from the table where the scissors and squares are located.

This is the story so far. I imagine that the goodwill may continue, not because of the piece in itself, but because so many of us are so moved by the veracity of this threatening annual extinction.

Dr Robyn Glade-Wright - Launceston, Tasmania

March 2009
Memorial: the Silence of Extinction reaches the community in Dallas, Texas

Written by Katie Kevill
When Cathleen Garcia, an elementary science teacher at Greenhill independent school in Dallas, Texas found out that the annual extinction rate of species was 27,000 she was astounded.  Immediately she realized she had to do something with this new knowledge.  Fortunately she was in a unique position to spread the word, through her teaching.  Cathleen believes that children are the answer to the environmental challenges we face worldwide and took it upon herself to teach her students about the catastrophic extinction rate and give them the opportunity to do something to help. 

During the last school year the first and second graders at Greenhill learnt about extinction and worked on the Memorial project almost everyday, along with the AP art class and the Upper School marine biology class. 
"I am spreading awareness by addressing the issues with all of my students, the entire first and second grade classes," Mrs. Garcia said. "We first watched a video about endangered species and discussed how endangered species become extinct species. Then we looked at reasons for endangerment and extinction and talked about ways that we, as individuals, can help. We are now talking about the dangers to organism diversity and Earth sustainability of losing species that fit into each habitat’s food chains and webs."
Many of the first and second grade students enjoyed what was taught in their classes and eagerly shared what they learnt in school with their friends and family. 

"I really like learning about endangered plants and animals," second grader Swati Ravi, a second grader said. "It’s fun to learn because then I can help make the world better for all these things."
By the end of the school year every student at Greenhill had participated in the project by cutting shapes from coloured squares of paper and placing them in the banner.  Some of the school’s Earth Day celebrations even centred on cutting shapes out for the banner.
It took the entire school year to finish the banner and every child understood how important it was and how challenging it will be to make changes to slow down or even stop the extinction of species.
Greenhill Independent School is hoping to host an exhibition for the Memorial project in April this year with the hopes that the city, state and country will be temporarily silenced by the challenge before us.