Sowing the seeds...

Sanjana Akula 

Year 10

SRC Area Representative - Sustainability 

Being part of the Sustainability Club is an amazing experience, because you can do a lot of stuff to improve your school in a certain area. 

My experience in the seed planting workshop was wonderful. It was great to see a lot of people caring about their environment. I really loved doing this workshop and if we have the chance, I think we should run this workshop again.

Layla Carver

Year 9

Around 22 students came to help plant vegetable seeds in bottles and pots to create a hanging garden. 

The workshop was a big success and now the fence across from the bike shed has a progressive bottle garden decorating it! There were also many Woolworths pots donated and planted, which should grow nicely! Hopefully, the seedlings will grow healthily so they can be moved into a larger garden bed and be used within the school. There are still a lot of seeds & pots left, so there may be another planting session in the future. We hope to see the BSC students continue to engage to increase the sustainable practices in our school! 

Click on the gallery to enlarge photos.

Angela Olah

Sustainability Coordinator

The Sustainability Club has made a fantastic start to 2021, working hard to promote sustainable living at Brunswick Secondary College by teaching students how to grow their own produce. On Friday 19th of March, the students ran a Seedling Garden Workshop. The aim of this student-led session was not only improve the biodiversity at the school, but also create a seedling nursery that could eventually be planted in the school’s garden beds and provide an additional source of fresh produce for cooking classes.

The Sustainability Club students collaborated to plan the activities, source the required materials and led the interactive workshop. They were sustainably minded throughout the whole process using only recycled materials and responsibly disposing of any waste. The students were confident in leading and managing the group of volunteers, not only teaching them proper planting techniques for the different species, but also how to preserve seeds from fruits and vegetables for planting. The result was the creation of a seedling garden that is currently growingly beautifully. 

It was inspiring to see all the students involved use the critical thinking and problem solving to position the plants to optimise their growth. The positive collaboration amongst students across all year levels exemplified behaviours in line with the school values. I am particularly proud of the Sustainability Club students who demonstrated strong leadership throughout the process. They were proactive in running meetings, setting and following-up on action items, promoting the session and running the workshops in a professional and educational manner. 

The passionate students who volunteered to help build the vibrant garden space included Sustainabilty Club members Layla Carver, Abbi Kelly, Stella Summers-Dixon, Stephanie Barwick and Sanjana Akula. The Sustainabilty Club was ably supported by additional volunteers:  Arieta Alievski, Madeleine Assende, Tameka Brown, Yasemin Ciftci, Prudence Connell, Greer Crossley-Wise, Cara Empey, Laila Gannan, Georgia Hatton, Jasmin Jamolo, Anoushka Keenan, Zoe Keramaris, Tom Gillespie, Flynn Magrath, Alistait McQuire, Juanita Myers, Lena Protz, Zachary Saffin-Keating,  Maddie Swearer, Lucy Varley, Zachary Yiolitis and Ma Li Zhu.

These student’s environmental leadership is inspiring! The Sustainability Club would also like to thank everyone who has contributed by donating materials and seeds. 

The club has future plans for improving organic waste management at the school, running terrarium-making workshops and propagating a variety of different plants. If you are interested in any or these projects, would like to join the club or have ideas for how we can improve our environmental footprint at BSC – we would love to hear from you! We meet on Fridays at lunch in F17 - everybody is welcome!