Australia's Wild Odyssey (ATOM Study Guide)

Follow the flow of water across the Australian continent to uncover the incredible connections that link all creatures on earth: from ants, to eagles to us.

Over three dynamic episodes, this wildlife series sets out on a journey across the driest inhabited continent – following the rain, rivers and underground aquifers as they transform and connect distant ecosystems. Each story reveals a new piece of the biological systems that have allowed life to thrive on our plant for billions of years.

The series carries the viewer across three continental journeys through Australia's wildest landscapes in search of answers to the most fundamental questions: What makes life possible, and how does it all work? How could inland floods affect mountain possums 1000 kilometres away? How do dingoes change the shape of desert sand dunes? How can a tiny crab help keep the earth's atmosphere stable? Every stop on our wild odyssey will provide a new piece of the complex puzzle of physical and biological systems that keep us all alive.

Australia’s great size, diverse landscapes and multiple climatic zones make it the perfect scale model to tell the great story of connectivity that links the world's ecosystems – from oceans to deserts, rainforests to frozen mountain peaks.

On the journey we meet passionate experts and First Nations custodians to explore their deep understanding and connection to the natural world – why they love it and why you should too. We explore some of the last wild regions on earth, and see how degraded ecosystems can be rehabilitated. We explore the science of ecology in an intimate and beautiful way, providing tools to help the audience interpret the natural world that surrounds them and the incredible connectivity that connects all life on this planet.

This natural history/science hybrid is produced by the Emmy-award-winning team responsible for many of Australia's best wildlife films including Kakadu, Life on the Reef, Australia's Ocean Odyssey and most recently Puff: Wonders of the Reef. Using gyro-stabilised 8K aerials, 6K drone photography, high-speed Phantom photography, timelapse, macro and graphics, the inner workings of these ecosystems are revealed in breathtaking detail – capturing the wingbeat of a dragonfly or the microscopic hair on the toe pads of a gecko that allow it to climb vertical surfaces.

Australia's Wild Odyssey is an epic adventure through Australia’s wildest landscapes, and a love letter to the only planet we know of that sustains life.

Curriculum Links:

This Study Guide for Australia’s Wild Odyssey is intended for secondary school students undertaking Science, with applications in the senior sciences of Biology and Chemistry, and with further links to the cross-curricular priorities of Sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures.

As a curriculum resource in Science, Australia’s Wild Odyssey is relevant to all strands – Biological Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences and Physical Sciences – of Science Understanding.