Oldies but Goodies - Australia

The year was 1982 and my English teacher made us do a report to the class. I should mention that we don't - or at least didn't - have something like "Show and Tell" in school. We rarely had to speak to the class unless we had to recite a poem which was hard enough (I'm still trying to get over the traumatic experience of Goethe's Wizard Apprentice, I sucked at that one big time).
My teacher gave each one us part of a book about American history and told us to talk about it. What she hadn't said was that she expected us to do that maybe with some note cards in case we lost the thread, but definitely not to mostly read off a paper we put together. The whole class had got that wrong - and we had some super A students - so I still think it was her own fault. I remember I had something about Marconi and my brother helped me with it because technical stuff is really not my thing and I was bored out of my mind.
After this disaster my teacher said we had to do another report, no reading off this time, but we were allowed to pick our own topic. I picked Australia because at the time I kept dragging home heaps of books about the Australian fauna from the library. I also sent a letter to the Australian Embassy in Bonn asking for information - no internet in 1982 - and they sent me back a big envelope with all kinds of flyers which I hadn't expected at all!
This time I didn't need help because the topic was so interesting to me. I remember a friend of mine asking if I could tell her something beforehand, so she could score with the teacher, so I taught her the word "marsupial" (we simply call them "pouch animals" here). My teacher was obviously impressed ;-)

On to this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge for items reminding of Australia, be it the colors of the desert for example, a mineral, or an animal that is connected with Australia in some way.
I hope you like my selection!

1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 6 RioRita
3 and 4 Cat's Wire
5 and 7 My Bijou Life