Finding megafauna footprints holds special meaning for these students

It is a round indentation in a rocky beach crust on the South Australian coast, hardly noticeable, but school student Reece, 10, has just discovered a new trace fossil of a megafauna species.

It is most likely a Procoptodon, or short-faced kangaroo, a marsupial giant, that became extinct at least 15,000 years ago, the largest of which stood 2.7 metres tall and weighed about 240 kilograms.

The Koonibba Aboriginal School students' learning journey has taken them from the pages of textbooks in their remote SA classroom to ancient rock art 720 kilometres away, and then on to mapping ancient footprints on the state's west coast near Fowlers Bay.

But the richest learning has been the discovery that their ancestors could have walked side by side with megafauna: giant kangaroos, mega duck-like birds and huge wombat creatures, called Protemnodon, Genyornis and Diprotodon.

School principal Mark Prince said the field trips, made by 21 students, were just one facet of learning that involved viewing megafauna in books and videos in the classroom, camping in the Flinders Ranges, and taking to the stage of a state conference in Adelaide.

Flinders Ranges Wadna tour operator and Adnyamathanha man Kristian Coulthard said it was empowering for the students to know the connection between First Nations people and megafauna.

Mr Coulthard took the students to see a petroglyph site called Yura Mulka.

"The art site was about my ancestors' interaction with megafauna. It was an engraving site that my ancestors carved," he said.

"I showed them the petroglyphs and explained what the markings meant and how we could work out the age of them through the animals depicted in them."

Mr Coulthard said it was important to share the stories about early human history with youth.

"The kids are in a place where they're standing on one of the oldest landscapes on the planet.

"They're learning about one of the oldest cultures and not far away is where multicellular life formed on the planet, which is pretty special," he said.

The school followed up its visit by contacting Flinders University to find out if there was evidence of megafauna in the Koonibba area.

Palaeontologist Aaron Camens, who has worked with Mr Coulthard in the Flinders Ranges, responded to host a field trip for the Koonibba students at nearby Fowlers Bay.

Disappearing footprints

Dr Camens said while there were unlikely to be any fossils like those found in the Flinders Ranges because of the harsh dynamic ocean environment, footprints of megafauna were preserved when layers of sand hardened over time in coastal areas.

"We see hopping traces from big kangaroos, the big round impressions where diprotodon might have stepped and then you get the three toe prints from the big birds," he said.

The weather conditions and erosion could destroy footprints but also uncover others.

"From year to year, they might be buried in sand or they might be exposed, depending on what's happening with the number of storms," Dr Camens said.

"The actions that destroy them can also move rocks or expose new rock and hence expose new footprints."

"It's so interesting to see the traces of these giant creatures that were living here thousands of years ago," Dr Camens said.

He said the fossils were probably from the last interglacial period.

"[They're from] before the last ice age when the sea level was near where it is today, so they're probably about 120,000 or 130,000 years old.

"But the first people to arrive in this region and in Australia in general would have walked amongst these megafauna species.

"I think that connection to the ancestors and the connection to country there that's represented by these fossils is really important."

The students' learning also involved documenting and analysing track waves, that might show how fast the animals moved.

Maths and science lessons

Two of the students were selected to share their learning at the 2026 Aboriginal STEM Congress (YASTSA) in Adelaide in August.

The students spoke of how they connected the South Australian curriculum, cultural knowledge holders, palaeontologists, authors and park rangers to build a field of knowledge about megafauna.

"They built their knowledge of megafauna so that they could share their knowledge with others at their workshop Walking with the Megafauna and the Aboriginal STEM Congress and later this term their parents/families in a learning showcase," Mr Prince said.

"There's some maths that's higher than primary school level but further down the track they might be able to use those measurements to make predictions about, for example, how fast the animals were walking."

It is a learning journey that has empowered the youth to walk tall with the knowledge they have a deep and long connection to their land.