Sustainability at St Joseph's
SUSTAINABILITY AT ST JOSEPH'S
The article below was published by Stonnington Council earlier this month. It demonstrates what hard work our current year 6’s completed last year in their work focussing on sustainability.
Creating tomorrow’s environmental leaders
Published on 02 March 2023
We’ve partnered with the Port Phillip EcoCentre to support Stonnington schools to take part in the award-winning Tomorrow's Leaders for Sustainability program. During the program, educators and students are guided to take meaningful climate action and embed sustainability throughout their school and curriculum.
St Joseph’s Primary in Malvern recently completed the 10-week program. We caught up with teacher, Siobhan O’Dwyer and her Grade 5 students, to learn more about their experience and the benefits.
Siobhan heard about TLfS after participating in Stonnington's Environmental Champions program. After two years of restricted learning, she saw it as an opportunity to restore and re-establish their neglected school garden whilst empowering student leadership and hands-on learning.
"The students loved having an expert facilitator visit them regularly and provide really engaging, hands-on activities, that encouraged them to consider how their actions impact the environment," enthused Siobhan.
At the end of the program, students had planned, designed, and executed a complete overhaul of the school garden, including:
- comprehensive planting program
- seed collection
- installation of healthy, productive worm farms
- planting indigenous species to support biodiversity.
The Grade 5 students were empowered to deliver a workshop at Port Phillip EcoCentre’s Sustainable Schools Festival, sharing the knowledge they gained through the program. Now in Grade 6, they have been set up to successfully lead the upkeep of the school garden and worm farms throughout the year.
"Our students thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Tomorrow's Leaders for Sustainability program, I would really encourage other Stonnington schools to apply and take part," said Siobhan.
This is a wonderful example of Council, educators and a local environmental group working together to create a cleaner, greener, more sustainable Stonnington. In offering the TLfS program, partially subsidised for schools within Stonnington, we hope to inspire the next generation of environmental leaders.
