For over 60,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have used scientific knowledge to identify, prepare, and use native plants for food medicine, and healing.
These traditional practices are grounded in chemistry, such as detoxifying toxic plants like cycads, or using compounds like citral in lemon myrtle.
In partnership with RMIT University (School of Science), Cosmos is helping to explain the science of bush foods.
Indigenous science offers both ancient wisdom and cutting-edge insight. You can get a taste of that science in our explainer Bush foods and the science of survival.
We have also create a mobile-friendly, visual guide about the chemistry of bush foods.
Cosmos Education offers two resources for schools as downloadable PDFs.
The teacher resource includes tasks for the classroom, a practical task, learning objectives and links to the curriculum.
The student factsheet provides upper primary school kids with an engaging two-page information sheet. Parents can also download the factsheet for their kids.